fi 



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Under the Sun. 



BY 



PHIL. ROBINSON, 



LATE PROFESSOR OF LITERATURE AND LOGIC TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA] 

SPECIAL WAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON "DAILY TELEGRAPH" 

IN AFGHANISTAN AND ZULULAND. 

AUTHOR OF "in MY INDIAN GARDEN," " UNDER THE PUNKAH," 
"nOAh's ARK," &C., &C. 



itlj a Preface 
By EDWIN ARNOLD, 

AUTHOR OF "the LIGHT OF ASIA." 



5>&<0 



/X^..i:V '^ ^ 



BOSTON: 

ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1882. 



JS4I3 



Copyright, 1882, 
By Phil. Robinson. 



University Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



DEDICATED 

TO 

€lit i^abase anti tU lotas Clufc^ 

OF LONDON AND NEW YORK, 
BY 

A SAVAGE OF THE LOTOS. 
1882. 



PREFACE TO LATEST EDITION. 



AUTHOR'S EXPLANATORY NOTE. 

I AM of opinion that no one living can be considered 
a greater authorit}' upon the subject of Natural History 
and Unnatural History than my daughter Edith, for on 
the occasion of her second birthday (last Thursday) 
we gave her a Noah's Ark, and her life ever since has 
been devoted to original researches into the properties 
of its various inhabitants. Not only does she bathe 
and feed each individual of the menagerie every day, 
but she puts Noah and all his family, and as many of 
the Beasts as she can find, under her pillow every 
night. Moreover, she approaches her subject quite 
unprejudiced by previous information, and with a grasp 
that is both bold and comprehensive. This free, gen- 
erous handling of the persons and animals that have 
come under her notice, convinces me, therefore, that 



Note to Preface. 



the contents of this volume will receive from her a 
fairer introduction to the Public than I could expect 
from a more precisely critical pen. 

Phil Robinson. 



EDITH'S PREFACE. 




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



I HAVE derived so much pleasure from reading the 
following sketches, humorous and pathetic, of Indian 
incidents, scenes, and objects, that I am glad to have 
the opportunity of recommending them to the two classes 
of readers who will, I think, be chiefly interested. One 
class consists of those who desire to know — what is 
not at present to be found in books — the out-of-door 
ordinary themes of observation in India ; the other 
class, of those who — knowing India well, and all the 
familiar sights and sounds alluded to in this little vol- 
ume — will easily fill up the slight and pleasant outline 
of the Author's sketches, and thus renew for themselves 
many and many a bygone happ}' hour and old associa- 
tion of their Eastern home. None but Anglo-Indians 
know what a treasure-mine of art, literature, and pictur- 
esque description lies unworked in the common experi- 
ences of our life in India. But some are unobservant ; 
some are too soon familiarized and forget the charm of 
first impressions ; some admire, or are amused, but lack 
the gift of expression ; and nearly all official Indians 
have too much business to leave them time for the pur- 
suit or record of natural history, and such light and 
laughing science as this little book contains. For here 
I think is one bright exception, — one Anglo-Indian who 



vi Preface. 



has not only felt the never-ceasing attraction of the 
"common objects" of India for a cultivated and ob- 
servant fancy, but has found time and gifts to record 
them as they first struck him, in a style which, with all 
its lightness of manner and material, has great strength 
and value, like those fine webs of Dacca and Delhi with 
the embroidered beetle-wings and feathers. The Author 
writes of beetles, birds, frogs, squirrels, and the " small 
deer" of India, but always, as it seems to me, with so 
just' a sense of the vivid vitality of these Indian scenes 
and creatures, and so much sympathy for the Asiatic 
side of our empire, down to its simplest everj^-day 
objects, that I should not know where to send an unin- 
formed English reader for better hints of the out-of- 
door look and spirit of things in our Indian gardens. 

They are only sketches, no doubt, which fill this little 
portfolio, but their outlines are often drawn with so true 
a hand, that nothing can be more suggestive to the 
memory of any one who has lived the same life. India 
ma}^ be hot, dusty, distant, and whatever else the weary 
exile alleges when his liver goes wrong, but she is never 
for one moment, or in any spot, as regards her people, 
her scenery, her cities, towns, villages, or country- 
places, vulgar. There is nothing in her not worth stud}^ 
and regard ; for the stamp of a vast past is over all the 
land, and the very pariah-dogs are classic to those who 
know Indian fables and how to be entertained by them. 
Our Author is one of the happy few in whom familiarity 
with Indian sights and objects has not bred indifference, 
but rather suggested the beginnings of a new field of 
Anglo-Indian literature. If I am not wrong, the charm 
of looking at these utterly commonplace animals and 
people of India in this gay and pleased spirit is that 



Preface. vii 



we get that freshness of feeling which youth alone en- 
joys when all the world is new to it, interpreted by the 
adult and matured mind suddenly entering a practically 
new world, — for such India is to the English official on 
his first arrival. All we other Indians had of course 
noticed all those odd and tender points about the 
"syce's children," the "pea-boy," the " bheesty's 
mother," the "dak-bungalow moorghees," the " my- 
nas," crows, green parrots, squirrels, and the beetles 
that get into the mustard and the soup. Here, however, 
is one at last who writes down his observations, and 
opens, I think, thereby a rich and charming field of 
Indian literature, which ought hereafter to jield man^^ 
other pages as agreeable as those which it gives me true 
satisfaction thus to commend to the public. 



EDWIN ARNOLD. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

A Preliminary Warning of the Contents op this 
Book 3 

^art I. Entitan &Mt\jz%. 
I. In my Indian Garden 17 

" When God set about creation, He first planted a garden." 

Nugce OriGlance. 

The Birds . . . . • 17 

*'Euel. — But of what sort, pray, is this life among the 
birds ? for you know it accurately. 
Hoopoe. — Not an unpleasant one to pass ; where, in the 

first place, we must live without a purse. 
Euel. — You have removed much of life's base metal. 
Hoopoe. — And we feed in gardens upon the white sesame 
and myrtle-berries and poppies and mint." 
Aristophanes {Hickie's). 

Of Hens 20 

**Tame, villatic fowl." — Milton. 
" The feathered tribe domestic." — Cowper. 
" The careful hen." — Tlwmson. 

** The dak-bungalow fowls develop the bones of vultures 
and lay the eggs of finches." — Nugce, Oriclanoe. 



Contents. 



PAGE 

II. Visitors in Feathers 26 

CoRVus Splendens. 

"* Crows,' remarked tlie Ettrick Shepherd, 'are down 
in the devil's book in round-hand.' " — Nodes Ambrosiance. 

Green Parrots 30 

" The writer of the Mahabharata excluded green parrots 
from an ideal country. ' There are, ' he writes, ' no parrots 
there to eat the grain.' " — Nicgce Orielanos. 

The Mynas (Stumince) 32 

" To strange mysterious dulness still the friends," — Byron. 
"Two starlings cannot sleep in one bed." — Proverb. 

The Seven Sisters ; 36 

* ' One for each of the wise men. of Greece, one for each 
hill of Kome, each of the divitis ostia Nili and each hero of 
Thebes, one for each day of the week, one for each of the 
Pleiades, one for each cardinal sin." — Nugce Orielance. 

III. Visitors in Fur, and others 39 

The Mungoose . 40 

The Gray Squirrel 41 

" The squirrel Adjidauno, 
In and out among the branches. 
Coughed and chattered in the oak tree. 
Laughed, and said between his laughing, ^ 

' Do not shoot me, Hiawatha.' " — Longfellow. 

The Ants 42 

" To the emmet gives 
Her foresight and the intelligence that makes 
The tiny creatures strong by social league. " 

Wordsworth. 
" The parsimonious emmet." — Milton. 
" Us vagrant emmets." — Young. 



Contents. xi 



^art II. STJe Inbian ^easong. 

PAGE 

I. In Hot Weather 55 

" A great length of deadly days." — Atalanta in Calydon. 
II. The Eains 67 

" For the rain it raineth every day." — Tivelfth Night. 

III. The Cold Weather 90 

" Ah ! if to thee 
It feels Elysian, how rich to me, 
An exiled mortal, sounds its pleasant name ! " 

Endymion. 

Part III. mnnatural J^istorg* 

I. Monkeys and Metaphysics 105 

Monke;^s and Metaphysics. — How they found Seeta.. — 
Yet they are not Proud. — Their Sad-Facedness. — De- 
cayed Divinities. — As Gods in Egypt. — From Grave 
to Gay. — AVhat do the Apes think of us ? — The Eti- 
quette of Scratching. — " The jSTew Boy " of the Monkey- 
House. — They take Notes of us. — Man-Ape Puzzles. 
— The Soko. — Missing Links. 

II. Hunting of the Soko -. .127 

" My lords, a solemn hunting is in hand." 

Titus Andronicus. 

"It is no gentle chase." — Venus and Adonis. 
** Whence and what art thou, execrable shape. 
That darest, though grim and terrible, to advance 
Thy miscreated front ? " — Paradise Lost. 
" You do it wrong, being so raajestical, 

To offer it the show of violence."" — Hamlet. 
" God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. " 

Portia. 
"With a groan that had something terribly human in 
it, and yet was full of brutishness, the man-ape fell for- 
ward on his face." — Du Chaillu. 



xii Contents. 



PAGE 

III. Elephants 152 

They are Square Animals with a Leg at each Corner and a 
Tail at both Ends. —"My Lord the Elephant." — That 
it picks up Pins. — The Mammoth as a Missionary in 
Africa. — An Elephant Hunt with the Prince. — Ele- 
phantine Potentialities. — A Mad Giant. — Bigness not 
of Necessity a Virtue. — A Digression on the Meekness 
of Giants. 

IV. The Elephants' Fellow-countrymen . . . 170 

The Pthinoceros a Victim of Ill-Natured Personalit5^ — In 
the Glacial Period. — The Hippopotamus. — Popular 
Sympathy with it. — Behemoth a Useless Person. — 
Extinct Monsters and the World they Lived in. — The, 
Impossible Giraffe. — Its Intelligent use of its Head as 
a Hammer. — The Advantages and Disadvantages of so 
much Neck. — Its High Living. — The Zebra. — 
Nature's Parsimony in the matter of Paint on the 
Skins of Animals. — Some Suggestions towards more 
Gayety. 

V. Cats and Sparrows 186 

They are of Two Species, tame and otherwise. — The Arti- 
ficial Lion. — Its Debt of Gratitude to Landseer and the 
Poets. — Unsuitable for Domestication. — Is the Natural 
Lion the King of Beasts ?— The true Moral of all Lion 
Fables. — " Well roared, Lion ! "—The Tiger not of a 
Festive Kind. — There is no Nonsense about the Big 
Cats. — The Tiger's Pleasures and Perils. — Its Terrible 
Voice.— The poor Old Man-Eater. — Caught by Baboos 
and Killed by Sheep. — The great Cat Princes. — Com- 
mon or Garden Cats, approached sideways. — The Phys- 
ical Impossibility of Taxing Cats. — The Evasive Habits 
of Grimalkin. — Its Instinct for Cooks. — On the Eoof 
with a Burglar. — The Prey of Cats. — The Turpitude 
of the Sparrow. — As an Emblem of Conquest and an 
Article of Export. — The Street Boy among Birds. 



Contents. xiii 



PAGE 

VI. Bears — Wolves — Dogs — Eats 227 

Bears are of three kinds, Big Bears, Middle-sized Bears, 
and Little Wee Bears. — Easily Provoked. — A Protest 
of Koutine against Reform. — But Unreliable. — Un- 

. fairly Treated in Literature. — How Robbers went to 
steal tbe Widow's Pig, but found the Bear in the Sty. 

— The Delightful Triumph of Convictions in the Nur- 
sery. — The Wild Hunter of the Woods. — Its Splendid 
Heroism. — Wolf-men. — Wolf-dogs. — Dogs we have 
all met. — Are Men only Second-rate Dogs ? — Their 
Emotions and Passions the same as ours. — The Art of 
Getting Lost. — Man not inferior to Dogs in many ways. 

— The Rat Epidemic in India. — Endemic in England. 
— Western Prejudice and Eastern Tenderness. — Emblems 
of Successful Invasion. — Their Abuse of Intelligence. 

' — Edax Rerum. 

YII. Some Sea-Folk 262 

Ocean-folk. — Mermaids and Manatees. — The Solemnity 
of Shapelessness. — Herds of the Sea-gods. — Sea-things. 

— The Octopus and its Kind. — Terrors of the Deep 
Sea. — Sea-serpents. — Credible and Incredible Varie- 
ties. — Delightful possibilities in Cuttle-fish. — Ancient 
and Fish-like Monsters. — Credulity as to Monsters, 
Disastrous. — Snakes in Legend and in Nature. — Mr. 
Ruskin on Snakes. — The Snake-folk. — Shesh, the 
Snake-god, — Primeval Turtles and their Contemporary 
Aldermen. — Impropriety of Flippancy about Turtles. 

Part rv. Ble J^ours untiet tjje PunltaJ. 

I. The Man-Eating Tree 295 

" But say, where grows this Tree, from hence how far ? " 

Eve to Serpent. 
" On the blasted heath 

Fell Upas sits, the Hydra-tree of death." — Darwm. 
" Here the foul harpies build their nests. 

. . . With rueful sound, 
Perched in the dismal tree, they fill the air." — Dante. 
" Not a tree to be found in the valley. Not a beast or 
bird, or any living thing, lives in its vicinity." — Foersdi, 



XIV 



Contents. 



PAGB 

II. Eastern Smells and Western Noses .... 306 
" We confess that beside the smell of species there may 
be individual odours ; . . . but that an unsavoury odour is 
gentilitious or national, if rightly understood, we cannot 
vs^ell concede, nor will the information of reason or sense 
induce it." — Sir Thos. Browne. 
" A nose stood in the middle of her face." — lago. 
" A good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the 
other senses." — Autolycus. 

" The literature of JSToses is extensive. Sterne has a 
chapter on them in ' Tristram Shandy ; ' and other authors 
have contributed respectively 'A Sermon on Noses,' 'On 
the Dignity, Gravity, and Authority of Noses,' 'The 
Noses of Adam and Eve,^ 'Pious Meditations on the 
Nose of the Virgin Mary,' ' Review of Noses.* Shajce- 
speare was never tired of poking fun at the nose or drawing 
morals from it, bjit what is more remarkable it might easily 
be proved constructively, from what he has said, that he 
believed, with Professor Jager, that ' the nose is the soul. ' " 

Orielana. 
III. Gamins 316 

" They are not dirty by chance — or accident — say 
twice or thrice per diem, but they are always dirty." 

Christopher North. 
" Oh, for my sake do you vdth Fortune chide. 
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, 
That did not better for my life provide 
Than public means, which public manners breeds. 

Sonnet {Shakespeare). 

lY. Of Tailors 326 

" Some foolish knave, I think, it first began 

The slander that three tailors are one man." — Taylor. 
" monstrous arrogance ! Thou liest, thou thread, 
Thou thimble ; 

Thou yard, three quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail ; 
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter cricket, thou, — 
Braved in mine own house with a skein of thread ! 
Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant ! " 

Taming of the Shrew. 



Contents. 



PAGE 

" Give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth 
their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows 
to man the tailors of the earth." — Antony and Cleopatra. 

"A tailor makes a man ? " "Aye, a tailor, sir." — Lear. 

''Eemember how Master Feeble, 'the forcible Feeble,' 
proved himself the best of Falstaff's recruits ; with what 
discretion Robin Starveling played the part of Thisby's 
mother before the Duke, and do not forget to their credit 
the public spirit of the tailors of Tooley Street." — Orielana. 

" I have an honest lad to my taylor, who I never knew 
guilty of one truth — no, not when it had been to his 
advantage not to lye." — Montaigne. 

Y. The Haea-Kiri 330 

" Escape in death from obloquy I sought, 
Though just to others, to myself unjust." — Dante. 

"The pitiful, pitiless knife." — Tennyson. 

"Oh ! happy dagger." — Juliet. 

VI. My Wife's Birds 341 

VII. The Legend op the Blameless Priest . . . 359 



UNDER THE SUN. 



UNDER THE SUN. 



Midentem dicer e verum, quid vetat ? 

I HAVE it not in my nature to look at the animal 
world merely as a congregation of beasts. Nor can 
I bring mj^self to believe that everything, whether in 
fur, feathers, or scales, was created for my own special 
benefit as a human being. Man was not created till 
the sixth daj^, and is therefore the junior among the 
animals. It took no better effort of creative will to 
produce him than to produce caterpillars. Moreover, 
earth was already populated before he came, and suffi- 
ciently complete without him. He was a noble after- 
thought. Indeed, rather than maintain that man was 
created "higher than the beasts," for the increase of 
his own self-importance, I would believe that he was 
created "a little lower than the angels," for the in- 
crease of his humility. 

At any rate, I prefer to think of the things of " the 
speechless world" as races of fellow creatures that 
have a very great deal in common with ourselves, 
but whom the pitiless advance of human interests is 



Under the San. 



perpetuall}^ dispossessing, and who are doomed to ex- 
tinction under the Juggernath of civilization. Nature 
builds only upon ruins. The driving-wheel of Progress 
is Suffering. 

Thus, so much the more should we feel tenderly 
towards the smaller lives about us, the things that the 
Creator has placed amongst us to enjoy the same earth 
as ourselves, but whom we compel to serve us so long 
as they can, and to die out when our end is servedo 
Except in Holy Writ there is nothing so beautiful or so 
manful as the teaching of Buddha, the evangelist of 
universal tenderness ; and approaching nature we ought 
to remember that it is the ver}^ Temple of temples, 
and that we may not minister there unless we have on 
the ephod of pity. 

You will think, no doubt, that if I feel so seriously, 
I ought not to tr}^ to make fun out of these animals and 
birds and fishes and insects. But wh}- not ? Ridentem 
dicer e verum, quid vetat? Besides, I know that if it 
were wrong to laugh over monkeys and cats and giraffes, 
I should feel that it was — and would n't do it. But, at 
any rate, if I say anything in this book that either the 
beasts or their friends think unkind or unjust, I am 
sorry for it. Attribute it, Reader, to want of knowl- 
edge, not to want of S3"mpathy ; and if 3^ou would be 
generous do not think me too much in earnest when I 
am serious, nor altogether in fun because I jest. 

One of the very few positive facts we have about 
Adam is that he gave names to all the living things in 
Eden: not of course those by which even antiquity 
knew them, but names such as Primitive Man, wher- 



Under the Sun. 



ever he still exists, distingaishes the creatures about 
him by. To him, for instance, the squirrel is "the 
thing that sits in the shadow of its tail," and in Akka- 
dian nomenclature there is no lion, but only ' ' the great- 
voiced one." We have only to see how the Red Indians 
individualize their fauna, to understand the nature of 
Adam's names. 

But to be able to name the creatures, furred and 
feathered, with such picturesque appropriateness argues 
a knowledge of their habits founded upon personal 
observation, and the legend therefore that tells us how 
the Angels failed to execute the orders of the Creator 
is not at all an absurd one. Allah, it is said, told the 
Angels — who were sneering at man — to name the 
animals, and they tried to do so, but could not. So 
then he turned to Adam, and the Angels stood listen- 
ing, ashamed, as the patriarch drew a picture of each 
creature in a word. The angelic host of course had no 
sympathy with them. Indeed, perhaps, they had no 
knowledge whatever of the earth and its things ; for it 
is possible, as Milton supposes, that the Angels never 
left the upper sky except on special missions. With 
Adam it was different. In his habits of daily life he was 
in the closest sympathy with other animals, and virtually 
one of themselves. Each beast and bird therefore, as 
it passed before him, suggested to him at once some 
distinguishing epithet, and he found no difficulty in 
assigning to ever}" individual an appropriate name, and 
appointing each his proper place in the s^'stem of crea- 
tion. Now, Adam was probabty nothing of an analo- 
gist, but he was certainly the father of naturalists. 

It is generally supposed that this system has now 
developed into an unconstitutional monarchy, but there 



Under the Sun. 



is much more to be said on the side of its being an 
oligarchy. 

Thus in the beginning of daj-s all power was in the 
hands of the Titans, the mammoths and the mastodons 
of antiquity ; but in time a more vigorous race of beasts 
was gradually developed, and the Saturn and Telius, 
Ops and Typhon, of the primeval earth were one by one 
unseated and dispossessed of power by the younger 
creatures, — the eagles of Jupiter and the tigers of 
Bacchus, the serpents of Athene and the wolves of 
Mars. 

The elder rulers of the wild world accepted at their 
hands the dignity of extinction ; and instead of a few 
behemoths, lording it over the vast commonwealth of 
the earth, there were developed many nations of lesser 
things, divided into their tribes and clans, and trans- 
acting, each within their own countries, all the duties 
of life, exercising the high functions of authorit}^, and 
carrying on the work of an orderly world. 

On land, the tiger and the lion, the python, the polar 
bear and the grizzty, gradually rose to the acknowl- 
edged dignity of crowned heads. In the air there was 
the royal condor and the eagle, with a peerage of fal- 
cons. In the m3^sterious empire of the sea there was but 
one supreme authority, the sea-serpent, with its terrible 
lieutenants, the octopus and the devil-fish. 

Yet none of these are absolute autocrats be3'ond the 
immediate territory they reside in. The}^ have all to 
pa}' in vexed boundaries the penalt}^ of extended domin- 
ion. Thus, though the tiger may be supreme in the 
jungles of the Himala3^an Terai, he finds upon his wild 
Naga frontier the irreconcilable rhinoceros, and in the 
fierce Guzerati country there is the maneless lion. Up 



Under the Sun. 



among the hills are the fearless Ghoorkha leopards ; and 
in the broken lowlands along the river that stout old 
Rohilla thakoor, the wild boar, resents all ro3'al inter- 
ference. The lion, again, they sa}^, is king in Africa, 
3'et the gorilla Zulus it over the forests within the lion's 
territor}' ; the ostrich on the plain despises all his man- 
dates, and in the earldom of the rivers the crocodile 
cares nothing for his favor or his wrath. The lion, 
indeed, claims to be king of the beasts ; but, loud as 
his roar is, it does not quite reach across the Atlantic, 
and we find the puma not onl}^ asserting leonine au- 
thority' , but actuall}^ usurping the ro3^al title as "the 
American lion ; " just as in Africa, under the lion's very 
nose, the leopard claims an equalit}^ of power by calling 
itself "the tiger." The polar bear can command no 
homage from the walrus, nor the grizzly bear levj" taxes 
from the bison. The python, "the emperor" of Mexican 
folk-lore, has none to attack him, but on the other hand, 
he does not venture to treat the jaguar as a serf. 

Among the birds of the air, though eagles are kings, 
the raven asserts a melancholy supremacy over the 
sohtudes of wildernesses, and the albatross is mon- 
arch of the waves. No one will deny the aristocracy 
of the flamingo, the bustard, or the swan, or dispute 
the nobihty of the ibis on the Nile, or of the birds 
of Paradise in their leafy Edens of the Eastern Seas. 
For pretenders to high place we have the peacock and 
the vulture ; and as democrats, to incite the proletariat 
of fowldom to disaffection and even turbulence, we need 
not search further than the crows. 

In the sea, the Kraken is king. It is the hierophant 
of the oceanic m3^steries, secret as a Prince of the 
Assassins or Veiled Prophet, and sacred from its very 



8 Under the Sun. 



secrecy, like the Lama of Thibet or the Unseen God 
of the Tartars. Yet there are those who dispute the 
weird majesty of the hidden potentate, for the whales, 
to north and south, enjoy a hmited sovereignty^, while 
all along the belt of the tropics the pirate sharks 
scourge the sea-folk as they will. 

Even this, after all, is too narrow a view of the wild 
world. And I find myself, catholic as I am in my 
regard for the things in fur and feathers, offending very 
often against the dignity of beasts and birds. How 
easy it is, for instance, to misunderstand the animals ; 
to think the worse of the bear for sulking, when it is 
only weary of seeking explanation for its captivity ; to 
quarrel with the dulness of a caged fish-hawk that sits 
dreaming of spring-time among the crags that overlook 
Lake Erie. Remember the geese of Apfel, and take 
the moral of their story to heart. I have told it before, 
I know, but morals are never obsolete. 

A farmer's wife had been making some cherrj^ brandy ; 
but as she found, during the process, that the fruit was 
unsound, she threw the whole mess out into the yard, 
and, without looking to see what followed, shut down 
the window. 

Now, as it fell out, a party of geese, good fellows all 
of them, happened to be waddling by at the time, and, 
seeing the cherries trundling about, at once investi- 
gated them. The preliminary inquiry proving satisfac- 
tory, these misguided poultry set to and swallowed the 
whole lot. ' ' No heeltaps " was the order of the carouse ; 
and so thej^ finished all the cherries off at one sitting, 
so to speak. 

The effect of the spirituous fruit was soon apparent, 
for on trying to make the gate which led from the scene 



Under the Sun. 



of the debauch to the horsepond, they found everything 
against them. Whether a high wind had got up, or 
what had happened, they could not tell, but it seemed 
to the geese as if there was an uncommonly high sea 
running, and the ground set in towards them with a 
strong steady swell that was most embarrassing to 
progress. To escape these difficulties some lashed 
their rudders and hove to, others tried to run before the 
wind, while the rest tacked for the pigst3\ But there 
was no living in such weather, and one b}^ one the craft 
lurched over and went down all standing. 

Meanwhile the dame, the unconscious cause of this 
disaster, was attracted by the noise in the fowl-3'ard, 
and looking out saw all her ten geese behaving as if 
they were mad. The gander himself, usually so solemn 
and decorous, was balancing himself on his beak, and 
spinning round the while in a prodigious flurry of 
feathers and dust, while the old gre}'' goose, remarkable 
even among her kind for the circumspection of her 
conduct, was lying stomach upwards in the gutter, 
feeblj' gesticulating with her legs. Others of the party 
were no less conspicuous for the extravagance of their 
attitudes and gestures, wliile the remainder were to be 
seen lying in a helpless confusion of feathers in the lee 
scuppers, that is to say, in the gutter by the pigsty. 

Perplexed by the spectacle, the dame called in her 
neighbors, and after careful investigation it was de- 
cided in counsel that the birds had died of poison. 
Under these circumstances their carcasses were worth 
nothing for food, but, as the neighbors said, their 
feathers were not poisoned, and so, the next da}^ being 
market day, they set to work, then and there, and 
plucked the ten geese bare. Not a feather did they 



10 Under the Sun. 



leave on the gander, not a tuft of down on the old grey 
goose ; and, the job completed, they left the dame with 
her bag full of plumage and her ten plucked geese, not 
without assuring her, we may be certain, of their sym- 
pathy with her in her loss. 

Next morning the good woman got up as usual and, 
remembering the feathers down stairs, dressed betimes, 
for she hoped, thrifty soul, to get them off her hands 
that very day at market. And then she bethought her 
of the ten plucked bodies lying out under the porch, 
and resolved that they should be buried before she went. 
But as she approached the door, on these decent rites 
intent, and was turning the ke}^, there fell on her ears 
the sound of a familiar voice — and then another — and 
another — until at last the astonished dame heard in full 
chorus the well-known accents of all her plucked and 
poisoned geese ! The throat of the old gander sounded, 
no doubt, a trifle husk}', and the gre}' goose spoke in 
muffled tones suggestive of a chastening headache ; but 
there was no mistaking those voices, and the dame, 
fumbling at the door, wondered what it all might mean. 

Has a goose a ghost ? Did an}" one ever read or hear 
of a spectre of a gander? 

The key turned at last ; the door opened, and there, 
quacking in subdued tones, suppliant and shivering, 
stood all her flock ! There they stood, the ten miser- 
able birds, with splitting headaches and parched tongues, 
contrite and dejected, asking to have their feathers back 
again. The situation was painful to both parties. The 
forlorn geese saw in each other's persons the humiliating 
reflection of their own condition, while the dame, guiltily 
conscious of that bag full of feathers, remembered how 
the one lapse of Noah, — in that " aged surprisal of six 



Under the Sun. 11 



hundred 3'ears, and unexpected inebriation from the un- 
known effects of wine," — has been excused by religion 
and the unanimous voice of posterit3\ She, and her 
neighbors witli her, however, had hastily misjudged the 
geese, and, finding them dead drunk, had stripped them, 
without remembering for a moment that if feathers are 
easy to get off they are ver}^ hard to put on. Here were 
the geese before her, bald, penitent, and shaking with 
the cold. There in the corner were their feathers, in a 
bag. But how could they be brought together? Even 
supposing each goose could recognize its own, how were 
they to be reclothed? Tarring and feathering were out 
of the question, for that would be to add insult to injury ; 
and to try to stick all the feathers into their places again, 
one by one, w^as a labor such as only folk in fairy tales 
could ever hope to accomplish. 

So she called in her neighbors again ; but the}^ proved 
only sorry comforters, for they reminded her that after 
all the fault was her own, that it was she and no one 
else who had thrown the brandied cherries to the geese. 
The poor fowls, brought up to confide in her, and repay- 
ing her care of them by trustful reliance, could never, 
her neighbors said, have been expected to guess that 
when she threw the vinous fruit in their path she, their 
own famiUar mistress, at whose hands they looked for all 
that was good, could have intended to betra}^ them into 
the shocking excesses of intoxication, and deceive them 
to their ruin. Yet so it had been. Accepting the feast 
spread out before them, the geese had partaken gladl}- , 
gratefully, freel}', of the insidious cherry ; and the result 
was this, that the geese were in one place and their 
feathers were in another ! At last, weary of the re- 
proaches of her friends, the widow gathered all her bald 



12 Under the Sun. 



poultry about her round the kitchen fire, and sat down to 
make them flannel jackets, — registermg a solemn vow, 
as she did so, never to jump hastity at conclusions about 
either bird or beast, lest she might again fall into the 
error of misconstruing their conduct. 

The mischief, however, was done ; for the geese, who 
had got drunk with brandied cherries, and been plucked 
by mistake in consequence, had good reason for with- 
holding from human beings for ever afterwards that pleas- 
ing trustfulness which characterizes the domestic fowl. 
Thej^ would never again approach their food without 
suspicion, nor look upon a gathering of the neighbors 
except as a dark conspiracy against their feathers. The 
dame herself, whom hitherto they had been wont to 
greet with tumultuous acclaim, and whose footsteps to 
and fro the}^ had been accustomed to follow so closely, 
would become to them an object of distrust. Instead 
of tumbling over each other in their glad hurr}" to meet 
her in the morning, or crowding round her full of gossip 
and small goose-confidences when she came to pen 
them up for the night, the}^ would qjq her askance 
from a distance, approach her onty strategically, and ac- 
cept her gifts with reproachful hesitation. And how 
keenl}^ the dame would feel such estrangement I leave 
my readers to judge for themselves. 

This untoward inebriation of the geese points, how- 
ever, another lesson ; for I cannot but see in it one more 
of those deplorable instances of moral deterioration of 
the animal world which from time to time obtrude them- 
selves, unwelcome, upon.the notice of lovers of nature. 

In Belgium and other places men try to make dogs 
believe they are donkeys or ponies by harnessing them 



Under the Sun. 13 



to carts, but the attempt can never succeed ; for a dog 
thus employed will always be a very indifferent donkey, 
and never a good dog. In Paris, again, the other day 
a man demoralized all his bees by bringing their hives 
into the city and putting them down next a sugar 
warehouse. The bees, hitherto as pure-minded and 
upright insects as one could have wished to meet in a 
summer's day, developed at once an unnatural aversion 
to labor, and a not less unnatural tendency to larceny. 
Instead of winging their industrious way to the distant 
clover-fields, and there gatheriog the innocent hone}^, 
they swarmed in disorder^ mobs upon the sugar casks 
next door, and crawled about with their ill-gotten burdens 
upon the surrounding pavement. The owner of the hives 
benefited immensely by the proximity of the saccharine 
deposits, but it was at the sacrifice of all moral tone in 
the bees which he had tempted and which had fallen. 

We never tire of protesting against the unnatural rela- 
tions of lion and lion-tamer, and of reminding the keepers 
of menageries that instinct is irrepressible, untamable, 
and immortal ; and ever}" now and then a lion, tired of 
foolery, knocks a man into mummy. The narrative is 
alwaj's the same, whether it happens at San Francisco 
or at Birmingham. A lion's keeper goes into the beast's 
cage to clean it, and having, as he supposed, seen all 
the occupants safely out, sets to work. As it hap- 
pens, however, the sliding door which divides the two 
compartments of the cage has not fallen securely into 
its place, and an old lion, seeing his opportunity, springs 
at the opening. The door gives way, and the next 
instant the beast has seized his keeper. A number of 
people, powerless of course to give assistance, are look- 
ing on ; but fortunately there is also present some pro- 



14 Under the Sun. 



fessional lion-tamer, belonging to the establishment, 
and this man, with great courage, rushes straight into 
the cage and confronts the lion. Discipline and a loaded 
stick triumph over instinct. The lion releases its prey 
and the unfortunate keeper is at once dragged out. 

Now it is easy enough, after such an incident as this, 
to talk of lions as savage brutes, and then to moralize 
over the foolhardiness of men who have grown accus- 
tomed to lions, and think that lions have therefore 
grown accustomed to them. But surel}^ it is much more 
just to the animals to remember that it is the most 
natural thing in the world for a flesh-eating animal to 
spring at meat when it sees it within its reach. 

The marvel, indeed, in these narratives alwaj's is the 
lion's forbearance. In the end that staggering blow 
right between the e3'es is accepted by him as a very 
forcible argument ; but before the gallant lion-tamer 
comes to his friend's rescue, at such a terrible risk to 
himself, the lion has always had plenty of time to do 
what he liked with the keeper he had caught, or at any 
rate to gobble up a good luncheon. When a lion is in 
a hurry it does not as a rule take him long to make a 
meal ; but in the accidents that occur in menageries it 
does not seem to occur to the beast that there is any 
necessitj^ for haste. Long captivity has made his practices 
unnatural. He has forgotten his old habits of hurried feed- 
ing. He had caught a man sure enough, for there the 
man was, and it was quite earlj^ in the morning. But he 
had all the day before him, so he thought ; and, though 
he remarked that there was a great deal of unusual ex- 
citement on the other side of his bars, and that the 
human beings who were generally so leisurelj^ seemed 
strangely flurried about something on this particular oc- 



Under the Sun. 15 



casion, he had the cage to himself, and there was no 
occasion that he saw for making a hm-ried meal. But 
he had misunderstood the facts of the case. He had no 
right to eat the keeper, for the man had only come in to 
clean his cage, and not to be eaten. The excitement 
outside was owing to the lion's own inconsiderate and 
greedy conduct. But if they did not want him to eat 
the keeper, why did they put him into the cage ? 



PART I. 



INDIAN SKETCHES. 



PART I. 
INDIAN SKETCHES. 

I. 

m MY INDIAN GARDEN. 

AGAEDEN everj^where is to the natural world 
beyond its walls very much what a good Review 
number is to the rest of literature. Shrubs and flowers, 
indigenous or of distant derivation, jumbled together, 
attract an equally miscellaneous congregation of birds 
and insects, and by their fresher leaves, brighter blos- 
soms, or juicier fruit, detain for a time the capricious and 
fastidious visitors. An Indian Garden is 'par excellence 
Nature's museum — a gallery of curiosities for the indif- 
ferent to admire, the interested to study. It is a Trav- 
ellers' Club, an (Ecumenical Council, a Parhament of 
buzzing, humming, chirping, and chattering things. 

The great unclouded sky is terraced out by flights 
of birds. Here, in the region of trees, church- spires, 
and house-tops, flutter and have their being the myriad 
tribes who plunder while they share the abodes of men ; 
the diverse crew who jostle on the earth, the lowest 
level of creation, with mammals, and walk upon its 
surface plantigrade ; the small birds whose names 
children learn, whom schoolboy's snare, and who fill 
the shelves of museums as the Insessores, or birds that 
perch. They are the commonalty of birddom, who fur- 
nish forth the mobs which bewilder the drunken-flighted 
jay when he jerks, shrieking, in a series of blue hj'phen- 
flashes through the air, — or which, when some owlet, as 



18 Indian Sketches. 



unfortunate as foolish, has let itself be jostled from its 
cos}^ hole beneath the thatch out into the glare of day- 
light, — crowd round the blinking stranger and unkindh^ 
jeer it from amongst them. These are the ground-floor 
tenants, our everj'-day walk acquaintances, who look up 
to crows as to Members of Congress, and think no mean 
thing of green parrots. And yet there are among them 
many of a notable plumage and song, more indeed than 
among the aristocrac}^ of Volucres ; just as, if the Indian 
proverb goes for aught, there are more pretty women 
among the lowest (the mehter) than any other caste. On 
the second floor, where nothing but clear ether checks 
their flight, swim the great eagles, the knightly falcons, 
and the vultures, — grand when on their wide, loose 
pinions the}^ float and circle, — sordid only, like the 
gods of old, when they stoop to earth. These divide the 
peerage of the skies, and among them is universal a fine 
purity of color and form^ — a nobilitj^ of power. The}^ 
are all princes among the feathered tribes, gentle and 
graceful as they wheel and recurve undisturbed in their 
own high domains, but fierce in battle and terribly swift 
when they shoot down to earth, their keen vision cover- 
ing half a province, their cruel cry shrilling to the floors 
of heaven. See them now, with no quarry to pursue, no 
battle to fight, and mark the exceeding beauty of their 
motion. In tiers above each other the shrill-voiced 
kites, their sharp-cut wings bent into a bow, their tail, 
a third wing almost, spread out fanwise to the wind, — 
the vultures parallel, but wheeling in higher spheres on 
level pinions, — the hawk, with his strong bold flight, 
smiting his way up to the highest place ; while far 
above him, where the sky-roof is cob webbed with white 
clouds, float dim specks, which in the distance seem 



In my Indian Garden. 19 

hardly moving — the sovereign eagles. They can stare 
at the sun without blinking ; we cannot, so let us turn 
our ej^es lower — to the garden level. Ah ! pleasant 
indeed was my Indian Garden. Here in a green colon- 
nade stand the mysterious, broad-leaved plantains with 
their strange spikes of fruit, — there the dark mango. 
In a grove together the spare-leaved peepul, that sacred 
yet treacherous tree that drags down the humble shrine 
which it was placed to sanctify ; the shapely tamarind, 
with its clouds of foliage ; the graceful neem ; the patul- 
ous teak, with its great leathern leaves, and the bam- 
boos the tree-cat loves. Below them grow a wealth 
of roses, the lavender-blossomed durantas, the cactus, 
grotesque in growth, the po^-ntzettia with its stars of 
scarlet, the spiky aloes, the sick-scented jessamine, and 
the quaint coral-trees ; while over all shoots up the 
palm. The citron, lime, and orange-trees are beautiful 
aUke when they load the air with the perfume of their 
waxen flowers, or when they are snowing their sweet 
petals about them, or when heavy-fruited they trail their 
burdened branches to rest their yellow treasure on the 
ground. 

And how pleasant in the cool evening to sit and 
watch the garden's visitors. The crow- pheasant stalks 
past with his chestnut wings drooping by his side, the 
magpie with his curious dreamland note climbs the tree 
overhead, the woodpeckers flutter the creviced ants, the 
sprightly bulbul tunes his throat with crest erect, the 
glistening flower-pecker haunts the lilies, the oriole 
flashes in the splendor of his golden plumage from tree 
to tree, the bee-eater shdes through the air, the doves 
call to each other from the shady guava grove, the 
poultry — 



20 Indian Sketches. 



Poultry? Yes, they do not, it is true, strictly apper- 
tain to gardens, but rather to hen-houses and stable- 
3'ards, to the outskirts of populous places and the 
remoter corners of cultivated fields. Yet they are — 
and that not seldom — to be found and met with in gar- 
dens where, if ill-conditioned, they do not scruple to 
commit an infinity of damage b}' looking inquisitive^, 
albeit without judgment, after food, at the roots of 
plants, and by making for themselves comfortable hol- 
lows in the conspicuous corners of flower-beds, wherein, 
with a notable assiduit3\ thej- sit to ruffle their feathers 
during the early hours of sunshine. These pastimes are 
not, however, without some hazard to the hens, for 
thereby they render themselves both obnoxious to man- 
kind and noticeable by their other enemies. A cat who 
has two minds about attacking a fowl when in a decent 
posture and enjoying herself as a hen should do, does 
not hesitate to assault her when met with in a dust-hole, 
— her feathers all set the wrong way, and in an ecstas}' 
of titillation. A kite will swoop from the blue to see 
what manner of eatable she may be ; nor, when she is 
laying bare the roots of a rosebush, is the gardener re- 
luctant to stone her, whereby the hen is caused some 
personal inconvenience and much mental perturbation, 
determining her to escape (always, let it be noticed, in 
the wrong direction) with the greatest possible precipi- 
tancj^ These same hens are, I think, the most foolish 
of fowls ; for on this point the popular proverb that 
makes a goose to be a fool is in error, as the goose is in 
reality one of the most cunning of birds, even in a 
domestic state, while in a wild state there are few birds 
to compare with it for vigilance. The hen, however, 
is an extraordinary fool, and in no circumstance of life 



In my Indian Garden. 21 

does , she behave with a seemly composure. Should a 
bird pass overhead she immediately concludes that it is 
about to fall upon her head ; while if she hears any 
sound for which she cannot satisfactorily account to her- 
self, she sets up a woeful clucking, in which, after a few 
rounds, she is certain to be joined b}^ all the comrades 
of her sex, who foregather with her to cluck and croon, 
though they have not even her excuse of having heard 
the original noise. But their troubles are many. 

Life is many-sided. Indeed, 3^ou may examine it 
from so many standpoints that had you even the hun- 
dred eyes of Argus, and each eye hundred-faceted like 
the orb of a dragon-fly, j^ou could not be a master of 
the subject from all sides. And yet how often does the 
man who has survej^ed his neighbors from two points 
only — the bottom of the ladder and the top — affect to 
have exhausted the experience of life ! For Man to 
dogmatize wisely on this life is to argue simplicity 
in it. 

For instance, have you ever looked at life from the 
standpoint of a staging-house fowl ? Perhaps not ; but it 
is instructive nevertheless as exemplif3ang the recipro- 
city of brain and body, and showing how one trait of 
character, by exaggerated development, maj^ develop and 
exaggerate certain features physical as well as mental, 
obliterate others, and leave the owner as skeletonized in 
mind as in body. Suspicion is the fungus that, taking 
root in the mind of the dak-bungalow fowl, strangles all 
its finer feelings (though fostering self-reliance), and 
makes the bird's daily life miserable. Think of the 
lives cursed by suspicion, and confer your pitj^ on the 
hen, — Cromwell shifting from bedroom to bedroom, 
and the royal Louis refusing food. Adam Smith was 



22 Indian Sketches. 



stolen in infancy by gypsies, and his parents lived ever 
afterwards in terror for the rest of their children. But 
what was this compared to the life of the staging-house 
fowl? His whole life is spent in strategy. Every 
advance in his direction is a wile, each corner an am- 
buscade, and each conclave of servants a cabal. 
With ever}^ sun comes a R3^e-House Plot for the 
wretched bird, and before evening he has had to run 
the gauntlet of a Vehm-gericht. His brother, suspi- 
cious 3^et all too confiding, would trust no one but the 
wife of the grain dealer who lived at the corner ; and 
this single confidence cost him his life. So our bird 
trusts no one. 

Indeed, now that I come myself to think seriously 
of the staging-house fowl, I would not hesitate to 
say that the washerman's donkey has the better life. 
The donkey can remember childhood's years as an in- 
terval of frivolit}^ and light-heartedness ; and even in 
maturer life it is free (with three of its legs), after the 
day's work is over, to disport itself with its kind. But 
the case is different with the bird. Pullets of the ten- 
derest years are sought out for broth ; adolescence is 
beset with peril in hardly a less degree than puberty ; 
while alas ! old age itself is not respected. Like Japa- 
nese youth it fives with sudden death ever in prospect ; 
but the hara-kiri in the case of the fowl is not an hon- 
orable termination of life, while the lively apprehen- 
sion of it unwholesomely sharpens its vigilance. It has, 
moreover, nothing to live on and plenty of it ; and this 
diet afi'ects its physique, inasmuch as it prevents the 
increase of flesh, while the constant evasion of death 
develops its muscles — the thigh-bones assuming vul- 
turine dimensions. The feathers, by frequent escap- 



In my Indian Garden. 23 

ings through small holes, become ragged and irregular ; 
the tail is systematically discarded as being dangerous 
and a handle to ill-wishers. Death therefore must 
come upon some of them as a sharp cure for life — il 
est mort gueri. 

But to others it is the bitter end of a life of peril- 
ous pleasure, — to such a one perhaps as the follow- 
ing. The bird I speak of was a fine young cock, a 
Nazarene in his unclipt wings, with the columnar legs 
of an athlete, snatching hfe by sheer pluck and dying 
without disgrace. His death happened in this wise. 
There came up the hill one day some travellers with 
whom the cook at the staging-house wished to stand 
well, and when they asked, " What is there to eat? " he 
replied with suavity, " Whatever your honors choose to 
order." So they ordered beef and then mutton, but 
there being neither, they desisted from ' ' ordering " and 
left it to the cook to arrange their meal. And he gave 
them soup made of an infant poult, two side-dishes 
composed of two elder brothers, a fine fowl roasted^ hy 
way of joints and the grandmother of the family fur- 
nished forth a curry. And one of the party watched 
the dinner being caught. With the soup there was 
little difficulty, for it succumbed to a most obvious 
fraud. The side-dishes fell victims to curiosity, for 
while they were craning their necks into the cook-room 
door, a hand came suddenly round the corner and closed 
upon them. The curry, poor old soul, was taken in 
her afternoon sleep. But the roast, the bird italicized 
above, showed sport, as well it might. For seven 
months it had daily evaded death, scorning alike the 
wiles of the cook and the artifices of his minions. 
Nothing would tempt it during the day within the en- 



24 Indian Sketches. 



closure in which so many of its family had lost their 
lives, and as it roosted high up in the walnut-tree behind 
the bungalow, night surprises were out of the question. 
Whenever travellers came in sight it would either fly on 
to the roof of the bungalow^ and thence survey the prep- 
arations for dinner ; or, slipping away quietly over the 
^ cliff, would enjoy healthful ease in some sequestered 
nook, whither was borne, tempered by distance and the 
comfortable sense of security, the last screech of the 
less wary. But its day had come. The fig-tree had drunk 
of the Neda. The travellers had been expected. An hour, 
therefore, before the}^ came in sight preparations were 
made for the great capture ; and, when on the appearance 
of the first horseman, the fowl turned as usual to escape, 
he found two boys on the roof of the bungalow, six 
more up the walnut-tree, and a cordon of men round the 
yard. There was nothing for it but to trust to its wings ; 
so mounting on the wall he flew for his life. And his 
strong wings bore him bravely — up over the fowl-^^ard 
and the goat-house and the temple, over the upturned 
faces of the shouting men — up into the unbroken sky. 
Below him, far, far down he saw the silver thread of 
water that lay along the valley between the hills. But 
there was a worse enemy than man on the watch — a 
hungr}^ eagle. And on a sudden our flier saw, between 
him and the red sunset, the king of birds in kingly flight 
towards him, and stopping himself in his course he 
came fluttering down — poor Icarus ! — to the friendly 
covert of earth with outspread wings. But the eagle 
with closed pinions fell like a thunderbolt plumb from 
out the heavens, and striking him in mid-sky sent 
him twirling earthward ; then, swooping down again, 
grasped him in his yellow talons before he touched the 



In my Indian Garden. 25 

ground, and, rising witii slow flight, winged his burdened 
way to the nearest resting-place — the roof of the staging- 
house. But his exploit had been watched, and hardly 
had his feet touched the welcome tiles before a shower 
of sticks and stones rained round him. One pebble 
struck him, and, rising hastily at the affront, his prey 
escaped his talons and, rolling over and over down the 
roof, fell into the arms of the exultant cook ! But the 
scream of the baffled eagle drowned the death-cry of 
the fowl. 



26 Indian Sketches. 



II. 

VISITORS IN FEATHERS. 

AMONG the common objects of my Indian Garden 
is the Corvus splendens. Such at any rate is 
the scientific name given by Vieillot to that " treble- 
dated bird," the common crow of India, and although 
one naturalist yearned to change it to " shameless " 
(impudicus)^ and although another still declares that 
splendens is inappropriate and tends to bring scientific 
nomenclature into ridicule, that bird — as was only to 
be expected from a crow — has kept its mendacious 
adjective, and in spite of ever}^ one is still, in name, as 
fine a bird in India as it was time out of mind in 
Olympus. S'plendens or not at present, the crow must 
have had recommendations either of mind or person to 
have been chosen, as Ovid tells us it was, as the mes- 
senger-bird of so artistic a deity as Apollo. But the 
crow lost paradise — and good looks with it — not for 
one impulsive act, but for a fortnight's hard sinning. 
Now punishment has a hardening influence on some 
people, and it has had a most dreadful effect on the 
corvine disposition. Heedless of all moral obligations, 
gluttonous, and a perverter of truth, Ovid tells us it 
was, even in its best days ; but now it has developed into 
a whole legion of devilry. Lest a Baboo should think 
to trip me up by throwing Menu in my teeth and quoting 
from the great lawgiver, ' ' A good wife should be like a 



Visitor's in Feathers. - 27 

crow," I would give it as my opinion that Menu, when 
he said this, referred to that doubtful virtue of the crow 
that forbids any exhibition of conjugal tenderness before 
the public eye, — an unnatural instinct and reserve, to 
my thinking. Crows cannot, like young sweeps, be 
called " innocent blacknesses," for their nigritude is the 
livery of sin, the badge of crime, like the scarlet V on 
the shoulder of the convict voleur., the dark brand on 
Cain's brow, the snow-white leprosy of Gehazi, or the 
yellow garb of Norfolk Islander ; and yet they do not 
wear their color with humility or even common decency. 
They swagger in it, pretending they chose that exact 
shade for themselves. Did they not do this, perhaps 
Jerdon would not have begrudged them their flattering 
name, nor Hodgson have called them impiidicos^ but 
by their effrontery they have raised every man's hand 
against them ; and were they anything but crows, they 
must have had to take, like Ishmael the son of Hagar, 
to the desert. Perhaps it is that they presume upon 
their past honors. If so, they should beware. Cole's 
dog was too proud to move out of the way of a cart of 
manure, and South ey has told us his fate. Again, their 
Greek and Latin glories have had a serious counterpoise 
in the writings of modern ancients, where the nature of 
crows is proven as swart as their Ethiop faces. Is it 
not written in the Singhalese Pratj^asataka that nothing 
can improve a crow ? Students of Burton will remem- 
ber that in the Anatomy of Melancholy devils (including 
sprites and such like devilkins) are divided into nine 
classes ; for though Bodine declared that all devils must 
of necessit}^ be spherical in shape, perfect rounds, his 
theory we are expresslj' told was quashed b}^ Zaminchus, 
who proved that they assume divers forms, '' sometimes 



28 Indian Sketches. 



those of cats and crows." Zaminchus was doubtless 
right, and no one, therefore, should feel any tenderness 
for these shreds of Satan, these cinders from Tartarus. 
Zaminchus superfluously adds that in these forms they 
are ' ' more knowing than any human being " {quovis 
homine scientior) ; and another old writer just as need- 
lessly tells us that these ' ' terrestrial devils " are in the 
habit of " flapping down platters " and " making strange 
noises." Some, however, may urge that because some 
crows are devils, it does not follow that all are. This 
is plausible but unworthy of the subject, which should 
be studied in a liberal spirit and without hair-splitting. 
When King John killed Jews, he didn't first finically 
investigate if they were usurers ; he knew they were 
Jews, and that was enough. Besides, did any one ever 
see a crow that was not '-'- quovis homine scientior " ? If he 
did, he proved it by putting it to death, and, as dead 
crows count for nothing, that individual bird cannot be 
cited as a case in point. Further, do not all crows 
' ' flap down platters " (when they get the chance) and 
"make strange noises"? Are not these unequivocal 
signs of bedevilment? Do not Zaminchus, Bustius, and 
Cardan agree on this point ? Does not the old Chinese 
historian lay it down that in the south of Sweden is 
situate "the land of crows and demons"? Is there 
not in Norway a fearful hill called Huklebrig, whither 
and whence fiery chariots are commonly seen by the 
country people carrying to and fro the souls of bad men 
in the likeness of crows ? Crows, then, are indubitably 
the connecting link between devils. Class 3, " inventors 
of all mischief," Prince Belial at their head, — and Class 
4, "malicious devils," under Prince Asmodeus.^ An 

1 I have here preferred to adopt Burton's classification, — P. R. 



Visitors in Feathers. 29 

iokling of their fallen state seems to be floating in the 
cerebra of crows, for they sin naturally and never beg 
pardon. Did any one ever see a contrite and repentant 
crow ? When taken flagrante delicto does this nobody's 
child provoke commiseration by craven and abject pos- 
tures, deprecating anger by looks of penitence? Quite 
the contrary. These birds, if put to it, would deny that 
they stole Cicero's pillow when he was dying ; or that 
the}^ sat, the abomination of desolation, where they 
ought not — profaning the Teraphim of John de Mont- 
fort, insulting his household gods and desecrating his 
Penates, while in the next room that great soldier and 
statesman was receiving the last consolations of Ex- 
treme Unction ? Yet it is known they did. They tread 
the earth as if they had been always of it. And j-et it 
pleases me to remember how Indra, in wrath for their 
tale-bearing, — for had they not carried abroad the 
secrets of the Councils of the Gods ? — hurled the 
brood down through all the hundred stages of his 
Heaven. Petruchio thought it hard to be braved in his 
own house by a tailor, and the tailor by an elephant ; 
how keenly either would have felt the familiarity of In- 
dian crows ! In the verandahs they parade the reverend 
sable which they disgrace ; they walk in the odor of 
sanctity through open doors, sleek as Chadband, wily as 
Pecksniff. Their step is grave, and they ever seem on 
the point of quoting Scripture, while their eyes are 
wandering on carnal matters. Like Stiggins, they keep 
a sharp lookout for tea-time. They hanker after flesh- 
pots. They are as chary of their persons as the bam- 
boo of its blossom, and distant to strangers. In 
England they pretend to be rooks (except during rook- 
shooting), but in India they brazen it out upon their 
own infamous individuality — for there are no rooks. 



30 Indian Sketches. 



Another prominent visitor of mj'- garden is the green 
parrot. It is, I think, Cervantes who has recorded the 
fact that Theophrastus complained ' ' of the long life 
given to crows." Now the argument of this complaint 
is not so superficial as at first it seems, and really con- 
tains internal evidence of a knowledge of bird-nature. 
Theophrastus, I take it, grumbled not simpl}^ because 
crows did in a long life get through more mischief than 
other birds can in a shorter one, but because, if Atropos 
were only more impartiall}^ nimble with her shears, crows 
would never be able to get through an}^ mischief at all. 
And in this lies a great point of difference between the 
sombre crow and the daedal parrot. 

The crow requires much time to develop and perfect 
his misdemeanors ; the parrot brings his mischiefs to 
market in the green leaf. While a crow will spend a 
week with a view to the ultimate abstraction of a key, 
the parrot will have scrambled and screeched in a day 
through a cycle of larcenous gluttonies, and before the 
crow has finishing reconnoitring the gardener, the parrot 
has stripped the fruit-tree. 

From these diff'erences in the characters of the birds, 
I hold that Theophrastus chose ' ' crows " advisedly, and 
made his complaint with judgment ; but T wonder that, 
having thus headed a list of grievances, he did not con- 
tinue it with a protest against the green color given to 
parrots. The probable explanation of the oversight is 
that he never saw a green parrot. But we who do see 
them have surely a reasonable cause for complaint, 
when nature creates thieves and then gives them a 
passport to impunity. For the green parrot has a 
large brain (some naturalists would like to see the 
Psittacid family on this account rank first among birds), 



Visitors in Feathers. 31 

and he knows that he is green as well as we do, and, 
knowing it, he makes the most of nature's injudicious 
gift. He settles with a screech among your mangoes, 
and as you approach, the phud ! phud ! of the falling 
fruitlings assures you that he is not gone. But where 
is he? Somewhere in the tree, you may be sure, prob- 
ably with an unripe fruit in his claw, which is raised 
half way to his beak, but certainly witli a round black 
eye fixed on you ; for, while you are straining to distin- 
guish green feathers from green leaves, he breaks with 
a sudden rush through the fohage, on the other side of 
the tree, and is off in an apotheosis of screech to his 
watch-tower on a distant tree. To give the parrot his 
due, however, we must remember that he did not choose 
hi^ own color, — it was thrust upon him ; and we must 
further allow that, snob as he is, he possesses certain 
manly virtues. He is wanting in neither personal cour- 
age, assurance, nor promptitude, but he abuses these 
virtues by using them in the service of vice. Moreover, 
he is a glutton, and, unlike his neighbors, the needle of 
his thoughts and endeavors always points towards his 
stomach. The starlings, bigots to a claim which they 
have forged to the exclusive ownership of the croquet 
ground, divide their attention for a moment between 
worms and intruders. The kite forbears to flutter the 
dove-cotes while he squeals his love-song to his mate ; 
the hawk now and again affords healthy excitement to a 
score of crows who keck at him as he flaps unconcerned 
on his wide, ragged wings through the air. " Opeechee, 
the robin," has found a bird smaller than himself, and is 
accordingly pursuing it relentlessly through bush and 
brier; the thinly feathered babblers are telling each 
other the secret of a mungoose being at that moment 



32 Indian Sketches, 



in the water-pipe ; while the squirrels, sticking head 
downwards to their respective branches, are having a 
twopenny-half-penuy argument across tlie garden path. 
Meanwhile, the green parrot is desolating the fruit-tree. 
Like the Ettrick Shepherd they never can eat a few 
of anything, and his luncheons are all heav}^ dinners. 
" That frugal bit of the old Britons of the bigness of 
a bean," which could satisf}^ the hunger and thirst of 
bur ancestors for a whole day, would not suffice the 
green parrot for one meal, for not onl}^ is his appetite 
inordinate, but his wastefulness also, and what he can- 
not eat he destroys. He enters a tree of fruit as the 
Visigoths entered a building. His motto is, " What I 
cannot take I will not leave," and he pillages the 
branches, gutting them of even their unripest fruit. 
Dr. Jerdon, in his Birds of India ^ records the fact that 
"owls attack these birds by night," and there is, ill- 
feeling apart, certainly something very comfortable in 
the knowledge that while we are warm a-bed owls are 
most probably garrotting the green parrots. 

I have spoken elsewhere, with some inadvertence, of 
" the Eepublic of Birds ; " although b}- my own show- 
ing—for I write of sovereign eagles and knightly 
falcons — the constitution of the volucrine world is an 
unlimited monarchy, of which the despotism is onty 
tempered b}^ the strong social bonds that lend strength 
to the lower orders of birds. The tyrant kite is power- 
less before the corvine Vehm-gericht ; and it is with 
hesitation that the hawk offers violence to a sparrows' 
club. But there are undoubtedl}^ among the feathered 
race some to whom a republic would present itself as 
the more perfect form of government, and to none more 
certainly than the mynas.^ The myna is, although a 
1 Sturnince, the Starlings. 



Visitors in Feathers. 33 

moderate, a very decided republican, for, sober in mind 
as in apparel, he sets Ms face against such vain frivoli- 
ties as the tumbling of pigeons, the meretricious dancing 
of peafowl, and the gaud}^ bedizenment of the minivets ; 
holding that life is real, life is earnest, and, while worms 
are to be found beneath the grass, to be spent in serious 
work. To quote " ane aunciente clerke," he " obtests 
against the chaunting of foolish litanies before the idols 
of one's own conceit " ; would " chase away all bewilder- 
ing humors and fancies " ; and would say with the clerke 
' ' that, though the cautelous tregoetour, or, as the men 
of France do call him, the jongleur, doth make a very 
pretty play with two or three balls which seem to live 
in -the air, and which do not depart from him, yet I 
would rather, after our old English fashion, have the 
ball tossed from hand to hand, or that one should pro- 
pulse the ball aginst the little guichet, while another 
should repel it with the batting staff. This I hold to be 
the fuller exercise." The myna therefore views with 
some displeasure the dilettante hawking of bee-eaters 
and the leisurely deportment of the crow-pheasant, can- 
not be brought to see the utility of the luxurious hoo- 
poe's crest, and loses all patience with the koel-cuckoo 
for his idle habit of spending his forenoons in tuning his 
voice. For the patient kingfisher he entertains a mod- 
erate respect, and he holds in esteem the industrious 
woodpecker ; but the scapegrace parrot is an abomina- 
tion to him ; and had he the power, the myna would 
altogether exterminate the race of humming-birds for 
their persistent trifling over lilies. Life with him is all 
work, and he makes it, as Souvestre says, "a legal 
process." Of course he has a wife, and she celebrates 
each anniversar}^ of spring by presenting him with a 



34 Indian Shetclies. 



nestful of young mvnas, but her company rather sub- 
dues and sobers him than makes him frivolous or giddy ; 
for as the myna is, his wife is, — of one complexion of 
feather and mind. A pair of mynas (for these discreet 
birds are seldom seen except in pairs) remind one of 
a Dutch burgher and his frau. They are comfortably 
dressed, well fed, of a grave deportment, and so respec- 
table that scandal hesitates to whisper their name. In 
the empt}^ babble of the Seven Sisters, the fruitless 
controversies of finches, the bickerings of amatory spar- 
rows (every sparrow is at heart a rake), or the turmoil of 
kites, they take no part, — holding aloof alike from the 
monarchical exclusiveness of the jealous Raptores and 
the democratic communism of crows. The gourd will Rot 
climb on the olive, and the olive-tree, it is said, will not 
grow near the oak. Between the grape of story and the 
cabbage there is a hke antipath}', " and everlasting hate 
the vine to ivy bears." The apple detests the walnut, 
"whose malignant touch impairs all generous fruit." 
So with the myna. It shrinks from the neighborhood 
of the strong, and resents the companionship of the 
humble. But among vegetables, if there is antipathy 
there is also sj-mpathy ; for does not the Latin poet say 
that the elm loves the vine? Country folk declare that 
the fig grows best near rue ; and the legend ballad of 
the Todas tells us how the cachew apple droops when 
the cinnamon dies. But among the mynas there is no 
such profligacy or tenderness, and over the annihilation 
of the whole world of birds they would be even such 
" pebble stones " as Launce's dog. At the same time 
they are not intrusive with their likes and dislikes. If 
the squirrel chooses to chirrup all day, they let him do 
so, and they ofier no opposition to the ostentatious com- 



Visitors in Feathers. 35 

bats of robins. Nor do they trespass on their neighbors 
with idle curiosity. That butterflies should m^^steriously 
migrate in great clouds, moving against the wind across 
wide waters, and even tempt the ocean itself with 
nothing more definite than the horizon before them as 
a resting-place, may set the inquisitive crow thinking, 
or furnish Humboldt with matter for long conjecturing ; 
but the mynas would express no surprise at the phe-" 
nomenon. They waste no time wondering with others 
why the wagtail so continuously wags its tail, nor would 
they vex the Syrian coney with idle questions as to its 
preference for rocky places. Such things have set oth- 
ers a-thinking, and would make the leaf-loving squirrel 
silly with surprise ; but the Essene myna ! — " Let the 
world revolve," he saj's ; "we are here to work, and in 
the name of the Prophet — worms.'' He comes of a 
race of poor antecedents, and has no lineage worth 
boasting of. The crow has Greek and Latin memories ; 
and for the antiquity of the sparrow we have the testi- 
mony of Hoi}' Writ. It is true that in the stories of 
India the mj^na has frequent and honorable mention ; 
but the authors speak of the hill-bird — a notable fowl, 
with strange powers of mimicry, and always a favorite 
with the people, — and not of the homety Quaker bird who 
so diligently searches our grass-plots, and may be seen, 
from dawn to twilight, bus}^ at his appointed work, the 
consumption of little grubs. The lust of the green par- 
rot for orchard brigandage, or of the proud-stomached 
king-crow for battle with his kind, are as whimsical 
caprices, fancies of the moment, when compared to the 
steady assiduity with which this Puritan bird pursues 
the object of his creation. And the result is that the 
myna has no wit. Like the Germans, he is incompara- 



36 Indian Sketches. 



ble at hard, uushowy work, but they — as one, a wit 
himself, has sajd of them — are only moderately mirth- 
ful in their humor. Intelligence is his, of a high order, 
for, busy as he may be, the myna descries before all 
others the far-away speck in the sky which will grow 
into a hawk, and it is from the myna's cry of alarm that 
the garden becomes first aware of the danger that is 
approaching. But wit he has none. His only wa}^ of 
catching a worm is to lay hold of its tail and pull it out 
of its hole, — generally breaking it in the middle, and 
losing the bigger half. He does not tap the ground as 
the wryneck will tap the tree, to stimulate the insect to 
run out to be eaten entire ; nor like the stork imitate a 
dead thing, till the frog, tired of waiting for him to 
move, puts his head above the green pond. " To strange 
mysterious dulness still the friend," he parades the cro- 
quet lawn, joins in grave converse with another by the 
roadside, or sits to exchange ignorance with an ac- 
quaintance on a rail. At night the mynas socially 
congregate together, and, with a clamor quite unbe- 
coming their character, make their arrangements for 
the night, contending for an absolute equality even in 
sleep. 

Has it ever struck you how fortunate it is for the 
world of birds that of the twenty-four hours some are 
passed in darkness ? And yet without the protection of 
night the earth would be assuredly depopulated of small 
birds, and the despots, whom the mynas detest, would 
be left alone to contest in internecine conflict the dom- 
inion of the air. 

As busy as the mj^nas, but less silent in their work- 
ing, are those sad-colored birds hopping about in the 
dust and incessantly talking while they hop. They are 



Visitors in Feathers. 37 

called by the natives the Seven Sisters,^ and seem to 
have always some little difference on hand to settle. 
But if they gabble till the coming of the Coquecigrues 
they will never settle it. Fighting ? Not at all ; do 
not be misled by the tone of voice. That heptachord 
clamor is not the expression of any strong feelings. 
It is only a way they have. The}^ alwaj^s exchange 
their commonplaces as if their next neighbor was out of 
hearing. If they could but be quiet they might pass 
for the bankers among the birds, — they look so very 
respectable. But though they dress so soberly, their 
behavior is unseemlj^ The Prince in Herodotus's his- 
tory disappointed the expectations of his friends by 
dancing head downwards on a table, " gesticulating 
with his legs." If Coleridge's wise-looking friend had 
preserved his silence through the whole meal, the poet 
would have remembered him as one of the most intelli- 
gent men of his acquaintance ; but the apple dumphngs, 
making him speak, burst the bubble of his reputation. 
His speech bewrayed him, like the Shibboleth at the 
ford of Jordan, " the bread and cheese" of the Fleming 
persecution, or the Galilean twang of the impetuous 
saint. Pythagoreans may, if they will, aver that these 
birds are the original masons and hodmen of Babel, but 
I would rather believe that in a former state they were old 
Hindu women, garrulous ^ and addicted to raking about 
amongst rubbish heaps, as all old native women seem 
to be. The Seven Sisters pretend to feed on insects, 
but that is only when they cannot get peas. Look at 
them now, — the whole family, a septemvirate of sin, 

1 The Babbler-thrushes, Malacocircus. 

2 " Ten measures of garrulity/' says the Talmud, " came down 
from heaven, and the women took mne of them." 



38 Indian Sketches. 



among 3'our marrowfat peas, gobbling and gabbling as 
if they believed in Dr. Gumming. And it is of no use 
to expel them — for they will return, and 

" Often scared, 
As oft return ; a pert, voracious kind." 

When it is night they will go off with a great deal of 
preliminarj^ talk to their respective boarding-houses ; for 
these birds, though at times as quarrelsome as Suma- 
trans during the pepper harvest, are sociable and lodge 
together. The weak point of this arrangement is that 
often a bird — perhaps the middle one of a long row of 
closely packed snoozers — has a bad dream, or loses 
his balance, and instantl}^ the shock flashes along 
the line. The whole dormitory blazes up at once with 
indignation, and much bad language is bandied about 
promiscuous!}^ in the dark. The abusive shower at 
length slackens, and querulous monosyllables and indis- 
tinct animal noises take the place of the septemfluous 
(Fuller has sanctified the word) ^dtuperation, when 
some individual, tardil}' exasperated at the unseemly 
din, lifts up his voice in remonstrance, and rekindles the 
smouldering fire. Sometimes he suddenl}^ breaks off, 
suggesting to a listener the idea that his next neigh- 
bor had silently kicked him ; but more often the mis- 
chief is irreparable, and the din runs its course, again 
dwindles away, and is again relit, perhaps more than 
once before all heads are safely again under wing. 



Visitors in Fur, and Others, 39 



III 

VISITOES m FUR, AND OTHEES. 

AS a contrast to the fidgetty birds, glance 3'our 
eye along the garden path and take note of that 
pink-nosed mnngoose ^ gazing placidly out of the water- 
pipe. It looks as shy as Oliver Twist before the Board ; 
but that is only because it sees no chance of being able 
to chase you about, catch you and eat you. If you 
were a snake or a lizard you would find it provokingly 
famihar, and as brisk as King Ferdinand at an auto-da- 
fe, for the scent of a liA^ely snake is to the mungoose as 
pleasant as that of valerian to cats, attar to a Begum, 
aniseed to pigeons, or burning Jews to His Most Cath- 
olic Majesty aforementioned ; and when upon the war- 
trail the mungoose is as different to the everj-day 
animal as the Sunda}^ gentleman in the Park, in green 
gloves and a blue necktie, is to the obsequious 3'oung man 
who served you across the counter on Saturda}'. Usu- 
ally the mungoose is to be seen slinking timorously 
along the narrow watercourses, or, under cover of the 
turf edge, gliding along to some hunting-ground among 
the aloes ; whence, if it unearths a quarr}', it will emerge 
with its fur on end and its tail like a bottle-brush, its eyes 
dancing in its head, and all its bod}^ agog with excite- 
ment, — reckless of the dead leaves crackling as it 
scuttles after the flying reptile, flinging itself upon the 

1 The Ichneumon, Viverrince. 



40 Indian Sketches. 



victim with a zest and single-mindedness wonderful to 
see. That pipe is its city of refuge, the asylum in all 
times of trouble, to which it betakes itself when annoj'ed 
by the cat who lives in the carrot-bed, or the bird-boy 
who by his inhuman cries greatl}^ perplexes the robins in 
the peas, or when its nerves have been shaken by the 
sudden approach of the silent-footed gardener or by a ren- 
contre with the long-tailed pariah dog that lives in the 
outer dust. The mungoose, although his own brothers 
in Nepaul have the same smell in a worse degree, is the 
sworn foe of musk-rats. "All is not mungoose that 
smells of musk," it reasons, as it follows up the trail of 
its chitt-chittering victim ; but although it enjoys this 
le sport it sometimes essays the less creditable hattue. 
Jerdon says, " It is very destructive to such birds as fre- 
quent the ground. Not unfrequently it gets access to 
tame pigeons, rabbits, or poultry, and commits great 
havoc, sucking the blood only of several." He adds that 
he has " often seen it make a dash into a verandah where 
caged birds were placed, and endeavor to tear them from 
their cages." The mungoose familj^, in fact, do duty 
for weasels, and if game were preserved in India would 
be vermin. Even at present some of the blame so lav- 
ishly showered on the tainted musk-rat might be trans- 
ferred to the mungoose. A little more of that same 
blame might perhaps be made over to another popular 
favorite, the grey squirrel. 

The palm squirrel, as it is more properly called, will 
come into a room and eat the fruit on joxxi sideboard, 
or into a vinery and incontinently borrow your grapes. 
A rat-trap in such cases ma}- do some good, but a com- 
plete cure is hopeless. Nothing but the Arminian 
doctrine of universal grace will save the squkrel from 



Visitors in Fur, and Others. 41 

eternal damnation, for its presumption is unique. The 
plummet of reflection cannot sound it, nor the net of 
memory bring up a precedent. It is gratuitous, unpro- 
voked, and aimless. It is all for love. There are no 
stakes such as the crow plays for, and in its shrill gamut 
there is no string of menace or of challenge. Its scran- 
nel quips are pointless, — so let them pass. Any one, 
unless he be a Scotch piper, has a right to stone the 
Seven Sisters for their fulsome clatter, but the tongue 
of the squirrel is free as air. There is no embargo on 
it ; it is out of bond, and wags when and where it lists. 
Let the craven kite (itself the butt of smaller birds) 
swoop at it, but give your sympathy to the squirrel. A 
woman who cannot kiss and a bird which cannot sing 
ought to be at any rate taught, but who would look for 
haiTnony from a squirrel ? Was wisdom ever found in 
Gotham or truth in the compliments of beggars ? Would 
you hook Leviathan by the nose, or hedge a cuckoo in? 
Again, besides its voice, people have been found to ob- 
ject to its tail. But Hiawatha liked it. There is no 
mahce in the motion of a squirrel's tail. It does not 
resemble the cocked-tip gesture of the robin's or the 
wren's. It does n't swing like the cat's, or dart like 
the scorpion's. It is never offensively straight on end 
like a cow's on a windy day, nor slinking like a 
pariah dog's. It has none of the odious mobility of the 
monkey's, nor the three-inch arrogance of the goat's. 
Neither is there in it the pendulous monotony of the 
wagtail's, nor the spasmodic wriggle of the sucking 
lamb's. Yet it is a speaking feature. That fluffy perk- 
iness is an index of the squirrel mind. With an up- 
ward jerk it puts a question, with a downward one em- 
phasizes an assertion ; gives plausibility with a wave, 



42 Indian Sketches. 



and stings with sarcasm in a series of disconnected 
lilts ; for the squirrel is as inquisitive as Empedocles, 
as tediously emphatic as the Ephesians, and in self-con- 
fidence a Croesus. It would not have hesitated to 
suggest to Solomon solutions to the Queen of Sheba's 
conundrums, nor to volunteer likely answers to the 
riddle of the Sphinx. It is impervious to jibes. Scoffs 
and derision are thrown awa}- upon it as much as solid 
argument. Hard names do it no hurt. It would not 
be visibly affected if you called it a parallelopiped, or 
the larva of a marine ascidian. Perhaps it is a philoso- 
pher, for, since squirrels dropped their nutshells on 
Primeval Man, no instance is on record of a melancholy 
squirrel. Its emotions (precipitate terror excepted) 
are shallow, and though it may be tamed, it will form no 
strong attachments ; while its worldly wisdom is great. 
Like the frog in ^sop, it is " extreme wise." Given a 
three-inch post, the squirrel can alwa3^s keep out of 
sight. You may go round and round, but it will always 
be "on the other side." 

Squirrels excepted, the most prominent members of 
Indian garden life are ants, for the^^ stamp their broad- 
arrow everywhere ; their advertisements ma}" be read on 
almost ever}'' tree-trunk, and samples of their work 
seen on all the paths. They have a head office in most 
verandahs, with branch establishments in the bath- 
rooms ; while their agents are ubiquitous, laying earth- 
heaps wherever they travel, — each heap the outward 
and visible sign of much inward tunnelling, which, 
towards the end of the rainy season, will fall in. En- 
gineering seems to be their favorite profession, although 
some have a passion for plastering, and when other sur- 
faces fail will lay a coat of mud on the level ground, for 



Visitors in Fur, and Others. 43 

the after-pleasure of creeping under it. Others are 
bigots to geographical discover}^, and are constantl}^ 
wandering into dangerous places, whence they escape 
only by a series of miracles. Of some a pastoral life is 
all the joy, for they keep herds of green aphides — 
better known as ' ' blight " — which they milk regularly 
for the sake of the sweet leaf-juice they secrete. Others, 
again, are hunters and live on the produce of the chase. 
Thej^ organize foraging parties and issue forth a host of 
Lilliputians to drag home a Brobdignag cricket; or, 
marshalled on the war-trail, file out to plunder the 
larders of their neighbors. The bulk, however, are 
omnivorous and jacks-of-all-trades, with a decided lean- 
ing towards vegetable food and excavation ; and it is in 
this, the enormous consumption of seeds in the ant 
nurseries, that this family contributes its quota to the 
well-being of creation, a quota which after all scared}^ 
raises it, in point of usefulness, to the level of butter- 
flies and moths — popularly supposed to be the idlest 
and least useful of created insects. It ought, however, 
to be kept in mind that butterflies are only beautified 
caterpillars ; and when we see them flying about, we 
should remember that their work is over and they are 
enjo^'ing their vacation. The}^ have been raised to the 
Upper House. From being laborious managers they have 
become the sleeping partners in a thriving business. 
While they were caterpillars they worked hard and well ; 
so Nature, to reward them, dresses them up to look at- 
tractive, and sends them out as butterflies — to get 
married. The ants, on the other hand, did no work 
when they were grubs, so they have to do a good deal 
in their maturity. They have to provide food for suc- 
cessive broods of hungry youngsters, who, when grown 



44 Indian Sketches. 



up, will join them in feeding their 3^^011 nger brothers and 
sisters ; or, if they are of the favored few, will enter 
ant life with wings, and be blown awa}^ by the wind a 
few hundred yards, to become the founders of new 
colonies. The actual balance of work done b}^ cater- 
pillars and ants respectively is indeed about equal ; the 
only difference being that caterpillars check vegetation 
by feeding themselves, and ants by feeding their babies ; 
while the balance of mischief done is very much against 
the ants. The commonest of all the Indian ants, or at 
any rate the most conspicuous, are the black ones, to 
be found marauding on every sideboard, and whose 
normal state seems to be one of criminal trespass. 
These from their size are perhaps also the most interest- 
ing, as it requires little exertion to distinguish between 
the classes of individuals that in the aggregate make 
up a nest of ants. There is the blustering soldier, 
or poUceman ant, who goes about wagging his great 
head and snapping his jaws at nothing ; furious exceed- 
ingly when insulted, but as a rule preferring to patrol in 
shady neighborhoods, the backwaters of life, where he 
can peer idl}^ into cracks and holes. See him as he saun- 
ters up the path, pretending to be on the lookout for 
suspicious characters, stopping strangers with imperti- 
nent inquiries, leering at that modest wire-worm who is 
hurrying home. Watch him swaggering to meet a 
friend whose beat ends at th^ corner, and with whom he 
will loiter for the next hour. Suddenly a blossom falls 
from the orange-tree overhead. His display of energy 
is now terrific. He dashes about in all directions, 
jostles the foot-passengers, and then pretends that they 
had attacked him. He continually loses his own bal- 
ance, and has to scramble out of worm-holes and dusty 



Visitors in Fur, and Others. 45 

crevices ; or he comes in collision with a blade of grass 
which he bravely turns upon and utterly discomfits, and 
then on a sudden, tail up, he whirls home to report at 
headquarters the recent violent volcanic disturbances, 
which, being at his post, he was fortunately able to sup- 
press ! Another and more numerous section of the 
community of ants are the loafers, who spend lives 
of the most laborious idleness. Instead of joining the 
long thread of honest worker ants, stretching from the 
nest to the next garden and busy importing food to 
the nurseries, thej^ hang about the doors and eke out a 
da}^ spent in sham industrj^ by retiring at intervals to 
perform an elaborate toUet. Between whiles the loafer 
affects a violent energ3^ He makes a rush along the 
highroad, jostling all the laden returners, stops most of 
them to ask commonplace questions or to wonder idly 
at their burdens ; and then, as if struck by a bright idea 
or the sudden remembrance of something he had for- 
gotten, he turns sharp round and rushes home, — tumb- 
ling headlong into the nest with an avalanche of rubbish 
behind him which it will take the whole colony a long- 
time to bring out again. The loafer, meanwhile, retires 
to clean his legs. Sometimes also, in order to be 
thought active and vigilant, he raises a false alarm of 
danger and skirmishes valiantly in the rear with an 
imaginary foe, a husk of corn-seed or a thistle-down. 
One such loafer came, under my own observation, to a 
miserable end. Thinking to be busy cheapl}^, he entered 
into combat with a verj^ small fly. But the small fly 
was the unsuspected possessor of a powerful sting, 
whereupon the unhapp}^ loafer, with his tail curled up 
to his mouth, rolled about in agony until a policeman 
catching sight of him, and seeing that he was either 



46 Indian Sketches. 



drunk, riotous, or incapable, nipped him into two 
pieces ; and a " worker," happening to pass b}^ carried 
Mm off to tlie nest as food for the family ! An honest 
ant, on the other hand, has no equal for fixedness of 
purpose, and an obstinate, unflagging industry. The 
day breaks, the front door is opened, and the honest 
, ant ascends to daylight. He finds that a passer-by has 
effaced the track along which he ran so often yesterday, 
but his memory is good, and natural landmarks abound. 
He casts about like a pigeon when first thrown up in the 
air, and then he is off. Straight up the path to the 
little snag of stone that is sticking out — up one side of 
it and down the other — over the bank —through a for- 
est of weeds — round a lake of dew, and then, with an 
extraordinary instinct, for a straight fine, he goes whirl- 
ing off across the cucumber-bed to some far spot, where 
he knows is lying a stem of maize heavily laden with 
grain. Then, with a fraction of a seed in his pincers, he 
hurries home, hands it over to the commissariat, and is 
off again for another. And so, if the grain holds out, 
he will go on until sunset, and when the pluffy, round- 
faced owls, sitting on the sentinel cypress-trees, are 
screeching an ilicet to the lingering day-birds, the 
honest ant is busy closing up his doors ; and before the 
mynas passing overhead, and calUng as the}^ go to be- 
lated wanderers, have reached the bamboo clumps which 
sough by the river, he will be sleeping the sleep of the 
honest. With industrj^, however, the catalogue of the 
virtues of ants begins and ends. They have an instinct 
for hard work, and, useless or not, they do it — in the 
most laborious waj^ they can ; but except for the wisdom 
which industry argues, ants have no title whatever to 
the epithet of " wise." Until they learn that to run up 



Visitors in Fur, and Others. 47 

one side of a post and down the other is not the qnick- 
est way of getting past the post, and that in throwing 
np mounds on garden-paths they are giving hostages to 
a ruthless gardener, they can scarcely be accused of even 
common sense. 

There has lately been discovered a species of ant 
which deserves to be at once introduced to the attention 
of all children, servants, and ladies keeping house. No 
vestr}^ should be ignorant of the habits of so admirable 
a creature, and sanitary boards of all kinds should 
without loss of time be put in possession of the leading 
facts. 

This excellent ant, it appears, abominates rubbish. 
If its house is made in a mess it gets disgusted, 
goes away, and never comes back. Dirt breaks its 
heart. 

The insect in question is a native of Colombia, and 
hatches its eggs by artificial heat, procuring for this 
purpose quantities of foliage, which, in the course of 
natural fermentation, supply the necessary warmth. 
When the 3'oung brood is hatched the community care- 
fully carry away the decomposed rubbish that has served 
its purpose as a hotbed, and stack it b}^ itself at a dis- 
tance from the nest. The damage which they inflict 
upon gardens and plantations when collecting the leaves 
required is so enormous that colonists have exhausted 
their ingenuit}^ in devising means for their expulsion 
or extermination ; but all in vain, for the ant, where- 
ever it "squats," strikes very firm roots indeed, and 
neither plague, pestilence, nor famine, neither fire nor 
brimstone, nor yet holy water, can compel it to go 
away. It takes no notice whatever of writs of eject- 



48 Indian Sketches. 



ment, and looks upon bell, book, and candle as mere 
. idle mummeries. The nest may be dug up with a 
plough or blown up with gunpowder, soaked with hot 
water or swamped out with cold, smothered with smoke, 
or made abominable with chemical compounds, strewn 
with poison or scattered abroad with pitchforks, — the 
ants return all the same, and, apparently, with a ga3'ety 
enhanced by their recent ordeals. The Inquisition would 
have had no chance with them, for all the tortures of the 
martyrs have been tried upon them in vain. Their 
heroic tenacit}^ to their homesteads would have baffled 
the malignity of a Bonner or the persecuting zeal of an 
Alva. But where force may fail moral suasion often 
meets with success, and this has proved true with the 
ants in question. An observant negro, remarking that 
the creatures were impervious to the arguments of vio- 
lence and knowing their cleanly habits, suggested that 
if the ants could not be hunted or blown or massacred 
off the premises, they might be disgusted with them. 
The experiment was made, and with complete success. 
The refuse foliage which the ants had so carefully 
stacked away in tidy heaps was scattered over the 
ground, and some other basketfuls of rubbish added, 
and the whole community iSed on the instant ! 

They did not even go home to pack up their carpet- 
bags, but just as they were, in the clothes they stood in, 
so to speak, they fled from the disordered scene. 

Ant habits have always furnished ample material for 
the moralis.t, but this, the latest recorded trait of their 
character, makes a dehghtful addition to the already 
interesting history of these "tiny creatures, strong by 
social league," the " parsimonidus." emmet folk. It 
destroys, it is true, something of their traditional repu- 



Visitors in Fur, and Others. 49 

tation for industry that they should thus abandon them- 
selves to despair rather than set to work to clear away 
the rubbish strewn about their dwelling-places. It sets 
them in this respect below the bees, who never seem 
to weary of repairing damages, and far below the 
white ant of the East, which has an absolutely fero- 
cious passion for mending breaches and circumvefating 
accidents. Nothing beats them except utter annihila- 
tion. 

The ants of Colombia, however, if the}- fail in that no- 
bilit}^ of diligence which seems to be only whetted by 
disaster, rise infinitely superior to their congeners in the 
moral virtues of respect for sanitation and punctilious 
cleanliness. There is, however, even a more admirable 
psj'chological fact behind than this, for it appears that 
the rubbish which scatters them most promptly is not 
their own but their neighbors'. Their own rubbish, it 
is true, sends them off quickly enough, but the exodus 
is, if possible, accelerated by emplojing that from an 
adjoining nest. To have their own litter lying about 
makes home intolerable, but that their neighbors should 
" shoot" theirs also upon them is the ver}^ extremity of 
abomination. Life under such conditions is at once 
voted impossible, and rather than exist where the next- 
door people can empty their dust-bins and slop-pails 
over their walls, they go away headlong. A panic of 
disgust seizes upon -the whole colon}^, and the bonds of 
society snap and shrivel up on the instant, like a spider's 
web above a candle-flame. Without a thought of wife 
or child, of household gods or household goods, they 
rush tumultuously from the polluted spot. No pious 
son stays to giA^e the aged Anchises a lift ; none loiters 
to spoil the Egyptians before he goes ; none looks back 



50 Indian Sketches. 



upon the doomed city. Forward and anywhere is the 
motto of the pell-mell flight ; all throw down their 
burdens that they may run the faster, and shamefully 
abandon their shields that their arms may not impede 
their course. Big and little, male and female, old and 
young, all scamper off alike over the untidy thresholds, 
and there is no distinction of caste under the common 
' horror of a home that requires sweeping up. 

Such a spectacle is trul}^ sublime, for behind the 
ants there is no avenging Michael-arm, that they 
should thus precipitately fall into ' ' hideous rout ; " no 
Zulu impi ; no hyena horde of Bashkirs, as there was 
after the flying Tartars ; no remorseless pursuit of any 
kind. Indeed, persecution and fiery trials they con- 
front unmoved, so there is no element of fear in their 
conduct. 

It arises entirely from a generous impatience of 
neighbors' untidy habits, from a superb intolerance of 
dirt. When was such an example ever set, or when will 
it ever be followed, by human beings? No single city, 
not even a village, is ever recorded to have been aban- 
doned on account of uncleanliness ; and 3'et what a 
grand episode in national history it would be, if such 
had happened, — had the men of Cologne, for instance, 
ever gone out into the country-side and all encamped 
there, in dignified protest against the ' ' six-and-seventy 
separate stinks " of their undrained city ! No instance 
even is on record of a single householder rushing from 
his premises with all his famil}^ rather than endure cob- 
webs and dust ; nor, indeed, of a single child refusing to 
stay in its nursery because it was untidy. We are still, 
therefore, far behind the Colombia ant in the matter of 
cleanliness. 



Visitors in Fur, and Others, 51 

_ _ 

In another aspect, perhaps, this impetuous detestation 
of dirt is not altogether admirable ; for, as I have 
noticed, it argues a declension in industry from the true 
ant standard. Thus, the very creatures that urge so 
headlong a career, when the neatness of their surround- 
ings is threatened, are marvels of diligence in collecting 
the very leaves which afterwards distress them so much. 
This assiduity has long been noted. In Cornwall the 
busy murians, as the people call the ants, are still 
supposed to be a race of "little people," disestab- 
hshed from the world of men and women for their idle 
habits, and condemned to perpetual labor ; while in Cey- 
lon the natives say that the ants feed a serpent, who 
lives under ground, with the leaves which they pick off 
the trees, and that, as the reptile's appetite is never sat- 
isfied, the ants have to work on for ever. From West 
to East, therefore, the same trait of unresting diligence 
has been remarked ; and, in one respect, it is no doubt 
a deplorable retrogression in the Colombia ants that the 
mere sight of rubbish should thus dishearten them. Yet, 
looked at from a higher standpoint, their consuming dis- 
like of uncleanly surroundings is magnificent, for they 
do not hesitate to sacrifice all that is nearest and dear- 
est, to risk even their public character, so long as suffi- 
cient eflfect can be given to their protest and suflScient 
emphasis laid upon their indignation. Anything short 
of flight, immediate and complete, without condition or 
reservation, would fail to meet the case or adequately 
represent their feelings. To them the degradation of 
submitting to a neighbor's cinders and egg-shells seems 
too despicable to be borne ; and rather than live in a 
parish where the vestry neglects the drains and the dust- 
bins, they abandon their hearths and homes for ever. 



52 Indian Sketches. 



We human beings cannot all of us afford to show the 
same superb horror of defective sanitation, but we can 
admire the ants who do, and can hold them up as 
models to all slatterns and sluts, parochial or do- 
mestic. 



PART II. 



THE INDIAN SEASONS. 



PART II. 
THE INDIAN SEASONS. 

I. 

EST HOT WEATHER. 

" And the day shall have a sun 
That shall make thee wish it done." 

IS Manfred speaking of the hot weather, of May-day 
in India ? The hot weather is palpably here, and 
the heat of the sun makes the length of the twelve hours 
intolerable. The mango-bird glances through the groves, 
and in the earl}^ morning announces his beautiful but 
unwelcome presence with his merle-melody. The koel- 
cuckoo screams in a crescendo from some deep covert, 
and the crow-pheasant's note has changed to a sound 
which must rank among nature's strangest, — with the 
marsh-bittern's weird booming, the drumming of the 
capercailzie, or the bell-tolling note of the prairie cam- 
panile. Now, too, the hornets are hovering round our 
eaves, and wasps reconnoitre our verandahs. "Of all 
God's creatures," said Christopher North, "the wasp 
is the only one eternally out of temper." But he should 
have said this only of the British wasp. The vespce of 
India, though, from their savage garniture of colors and 
their ghastly elegance, very formidable to look on, are 



56 The Indian Seasons. 

but feeble folk compared with their banded congener of 
England, the ruffian in glossy velvet and deep yellow, 
who assails one at all hours of the summer's day, lurk- 
ing in fallen fruit, making grocers' shops as dangerous 
as A'iper-pits, an empty sugar-keg a very cockatrice den, 
and spreading dismay at everj' picnic. But the wasp 
points this moral, — that it requires no brains to annoy. 
A wasp stings as well without its head as with it. 
' Flies, too, now assume a prominence to which they 
are in no way entitled by their merits. Luther hated 
flies quia sunt imagines diaboli et hcereticorum ; and, with a 
fine enthusiasm worthy of the great Reformer, he smote 
Beelzebub in detail. " I am," he said one da}'', as he 
sat at his dinner, his Boswell (Lauterbach) taking notes 
under the table, "I am a great enemy unto flies, for 
when I have a good book they flock upon it, parade up 
and down upon it, and soil it." So Luther used to kill 
them with all the malignity of the early Christian. And 
indeed the fly deserves death. It has no delicacy, and 
hints are thrown away upon the importunate insect. 
With a persistent insolence it returns to your nose, 
perching irreverently upon the feature, until sudden 
death cuts short its ill-mannered career. In this matter 
my sj^npathies are rather with that Roman Emperor 
who impaled on pins all the flies he could catch, than 
with Uncle Toby who, when he had in his power a 
ruffianly bluebottle, let it go out of the window, — to 
fly into his neighbor's house and vex him. The only 
consolation is that the neighbor probably killed it. 

The sun is hardly up yet, so the doors are open. 
From the garden come the sounds of chattering hot- 
weather birds. ' ' While eating," said the Shepherd, ' ' say 
little, but look friendly ; " but the starlings (to give them 



In Hot Weather. 57 



their due and to speak more point-device, — the " rose- 
colored pastors") do not at all respect the advice of 
James Hogg, for while eating the}" say much, looking 
the while most unfriendly. They have onl}" just arrived 
from Syria, — indeed, in their far-off breeding cliffs, there 
are still young birds waiting for their wings before leav- 
ing for the East, — and they lose no time in announcing 
their arrival. The unhappy owner of the mulberry-grove 
yonder wages a bitter conflict with them, and from their 
numbers his pellet-bow thins out many a rosy thief. The 
red semul-tree is all aflame with burning scarlet, each 
branch a chandelier lit up with clusters of fierj" blossom ; 
and to it in the early heat come flocking, " with tongues 
all loudness," a motley crowd of birds thirsting for the 
cool dew which has been all night collecting in the 
floral goblets and been sweetened by the semul's honey. 
Among them the pastors revel, drinking, fighting, and 
chattering from early dawn to blazing noon. But as 
the sun strengthens all nature begins to confess the heat, 
and even the crow caws sadly. On the water the sun 
dances with such a blinding sparkle that the panoplied 
crocodile, apprehensive of asphj'xia, will hardly show 
his scales above the river, and the turtles shut up their 
telescope necks, shrewdl}' suspecting a sunstroke. On 
the -shaded hillside the herded pigs he dreamily grunt- 
ing, and in the deep coverts the deer stretch themselves 
secure. The peasants in the fields have loosed their 
bullocks for a respite ; and , while the}' make their way 
to the puddles, their masters creep under their grass 
huts to eat their meal, smoke their pipes, and doze. 

But in the cities the heat of noon is worse. There is 
wanting even the relief of herbage and running water. 
The white sunhght lies upon the roads, so palpable a 



58 The Indian Seasons. 

heat that it might be peeled off; the bare, blinding walls, 
surcharged with heat, refuse to soak in more, and reject 
upon the air the fervor beating down upon them. In 
the dust}^ hollows of the roadside the pariah dogs lie 
sweltering in dry heat ; beneath the trees sit the crows, 
their beaks agape ; the buffaloes are wallowing in the 
shrunken mud-holes, — but not a human being is abroad 
of his own will. At times a messenger, with his head 
swathed in cloths, trudges along through the white dust ; 
or a camel, his cloven feet treading the hot, soft surface 
of the road as if it were again pressing the sand-plains 
of the Khanates, goes lounging b}^ ; but the world holds 
the mid-da}' to be intolerable, and has renounced it, seek- 
ing such respite as it may from the terrible breath of 
that hot wind which is shrivelling up the face of nature, 
making each tree as dr3^as the Oak of Mamre, suffo- 
cating out of it all that has life. 

But the punkah-coolie is left outside. His lines have 
been cast to him on the wrong side of the tattie. The 
hot wind, whose curses the sweet kiss of the kus-kus 
turns to blessings, whose oven-breath passes into our 
houses with a borrowed fragrance, finds the punkah- 
coolie standing undefended in the verandah, and blows 
upon him ; the sun sees him and, as long as he can, 
stares at him ; until the punkah-coolie, in the stifling 
heat of May-da}", almost longs for the flooded miseries 
of Michaelmas. But he has his revenge. In his hands 
he holds a rope — a punkah-rope — and beneath the 
punkah sits his master, writing. On either side and all 
round him, piled carefullj', are arranged papers, — light, 
flimsy sheets, — and on each pile lies a paper-weight. 
And the punkah swings backward and forward with a 
measured flight, the papers' edges responsive, with a 



In Sot Weather. 59 



rustle, to each wave of air. And the writer, wary at 
first, grows careless. The monotony of the air has put 
him off his guard, and here and there a paper-weight 
has been removed. Now is the coolie's time. Sweet is 
revenge I and suddenly with a jerk the punkah wakes 
up, sweeping in a wider arc, and with a rustle of many 
wings the piled papers slide whispering to the floor. 
But why loiter to enumerate the coolie's small revenges, 
the mean tricks by which, when j^ou rise, he flips you 
in the eye with the punkah fringe, disordering 3^our hair 
and sweeping it this way and that, — the petty retaliation 
of finding out a hole in the tattie, and flinging water 
through it on to your matting, angering the dog that was 
Ij^ing in the cool, damp shade ? These and such are the 
coolie's revenges, when the hot weather by which he 
lives embitters him against his kind. But at night he 
develops into a flend, for whom a deep and bitter 
loathing possesses itself of the hearts of men. It is 
upon him that the strong man, furious at the sudden 
cessation of the breeze, makes armed sallies. It is on 
him that the mosquito-bitten subaltern, wakeful through 
the oil-lit watches of the night, empties the vial of his 
wrath and the contents of his wash-hand basin : who 
shares with the griff's dogs the uncompromising at- 
tentions of boot-jacks and riding- whips. For him in- 
genious 3"0uth devises rare traps, cunning pjTamids of 
beer-boxes with a rope attached — curious penalties to 
make him suffer, — for the coolie, after the sun has set, 
becomes a demoralized machine that requires winding 
up once everj^ twentj^ minutes, and is not to be kept 
going without torture. And thus for eight shillings a 
month he embitters your life, making the punkah an 
engine wherewith to oppress you. 



60 The Indian Seasons. 

It is Cardan, I think, who advises men to partake 
sometimes of unwholesome food if they have an extra- 
ordinary liking for it ; it is not always well, he would 
tell us, to be of an even virtue. What a poor thing, for 
instance, were an oyster in constant health ; ladies' 
caskets would then want their pearls. Who does not at 
times resent the appearance of a friend who is comfort- 
ably fat, come weal or woe? The uniform hilarity of 
Mark Taple}- recommends itself to few. But to the 
punkah-coolie, how inexplicable our theorizing on the 
evil of monotonous good ! To him anything good is so 
rare that he at once assimilates it, when he meets with 
it, to his ordinary evil. He cannot trust himself to be- 
lieve the metal in his hand is gold. Given enough, he 
commits a surfeit, and tempted with a little he lusts 
after too much. Indulgence with the coolie means 
license, and a conditional promise a carte hlanche. And 
thus he provokes ill-nature. Usuall}- it depends upon 
the master whether service be huraihation ; but the 
punkah-coolie is such "a thing of dark imaginings" 
that he too often defies s^'mpathy. 

I have three coolies, and I call them Shadrach, 
Meshach, and Abednego, for they have stood the test 
of fire. And Shadrach is an idiot. Upon him the wily 
Meshach foists his work ; and at times even the crass 
Abednego can shuffle his periods of toil upon the broad 
shoulders of Shadrach. He is slate-colored when dry ; 
in the rains he resembles a hheesty's'^ water-skin. In his 
youth he was neglected, and in his manhood his paunch 
hath attained an unseeml}^ rotundity. Not that I would 
have it supposed he is portly. His dimensions have 
been induced by disease. His thin face knows it, and 

1 The water-carrier. 



In Hot Weather. 61 



wears an expression of deprecating humilit}^, to which 
his conscious legs respond in tremulous emotions. His 
life is a book without pictures. His existence is set to 
ver}^ sad music. The slightest noise within the house is 
sufficient to set Shadrach pulling like a bell-ringer on 
New Year's Eve ; but a verj'- few minutes suffice to 
plunge him into obese oblivion, and then the punkah; 
waggles feebly until a shout again electrifies it into 
ferocit}^ It is always when Shadrach is pulling that 
the punkah-rope breaks ; when more water than usual 
splashes through the tattie I make sure that the ladle is 
in Shadrach's hands. Meshach is of another sort. He 
is the oldest of the three and when he condbscends to^ 
the rope, pulls the punkah well. But, as a rule, hC' 
allows Shadrach to do his work ; for as often as I look 
out Meshach is tying curled: up under a pink cloth 
asleep, and Shadrach is pulling. He has established a 
mastery over his fellows, and by virtue, so I believe, of 
that pink cloth which voluminously girds his wizened 
frame, exacts a respect to which his claim is forged. 
They are the Children of the Lotus, and he their wise 
Hermogene. In a grievance Meshach is spokesman, 
but in the case of a disagreement arising, the master's 
wrath falls alwaj^s, somehow, on one of the others. 
When pay-day comes, Meshach sits familiarly in the 
verandah with the regular retainers of the household ; 
while Shadrach and Abednego await their wages at a 
distance, standing foolishly in the sun. Abednego 
is a man of great physical power, and of something 
less than average intelligence. He is noisy at times, 
and may be heard quarrelling with the bheesty who 
comes to fill the tattle-pots, or grumbling when no one 
appears to reheve him at the right moment. But alto- 



62 The Indian Seasons. 

gether he is a harmless animal, turning his hand cheer- 
fully to other work than his own, and even rising to a 
joke with the gardener. Bnt Meshach holds him in 
subjection. 

But the hot da}^ is passing. The sun is going down 
the hill, but 3'et not so fiist as to explain the sudden 
gloom which relieves the skj'. In the west has risen a 
brown cloud, and the far trees tell of a rising wind. It 
nears swiftl}-, driving before it a flock of birds. The 
wind must be high, for the kite cannot keep its balance, 
and attempts in vain to beat up against it. The crow 
yields to it without a struggle, and goes drifting east- 
ward ; the small birds shoot right and left for shelter. 
It is a dust-storm. The brown cloud has now risen well 
above the trees, and already the garden is aware of its 
approach. You can hear the storm gathering up its 
rustling skirts for a rush through the tree-tops. And on 
a sudden it sweeps up with a roar, embanked in fine 
clouds of dust, and strikes the house. At once every 
door bursts open or shuts to, the servants shout, the 
horses in the stables neigh, and while the brief hurri- 
cane is passing a pall lies upon the place. Out of 
windows the sight is limited to a few 3^ards, beyond 
which may be only mistilj^ made out the forms of strong 
trees bowing before the fierce blast, with their boughs 
all streaming in one direction. The darkness is like 
that mysterious murk which rested on the fabled land 
of Hannyson — " alle covered with darkness withouten 
any brightnesse or light : so that no man may see ne 
heren ne no man dar entren in to hem. And natheless 
thei of the Contree sey that some tyme men heren voys 
of Folk and Hors nyzenge and Cokkes crowynge. And 
men witen well that men dwellen there, but knowe not 



In Hot Weather. 63 



what men." Hark ! there are voices of folk ; from the 
stables comes the " n3^zenge of hors," from the direction 
of the fowl-house a '* vo^'S of cokkes crowynge," and 
the murk of Hann^^son is over all. As suddenly as it 
came the storm has gone. The verandahs are full of 
dead leaves, the tattie-door has fallen, and a few tiles 
are lying on the ground ; but the dust-storm has 
passed on far ahead and is already on the river. Out 
upon the Ganges the sudden rippHng of the water, the 
brown haze beyond the bank, have warned the native 
steersman to make for the land. Over his head sweep 
and circle the anxious river-fowl, the keen-winged terns 
and piping sand-birds, the egret and the ibis ; and as his 
skiff nears the shore he sees a sudden hurrying on all 
the large vessel-decks, hears the cries of the boatmen 
as they hasten to haul down the clums}'' sails, and in 
another minute his own boat is rocking about and 
bumping among the others. The dust-storm travels 
quickly. Between the banks is sweeping up the sand- 
laden wind, concealing from the huddled boats the 
temples and the ghat across the river, the bridge that 
spans it, and the sky itself. But only for a minute, for 
almost before the river has had time to ruffle into waves 
the storm has passed, and the Ganges is flowing as 
quietly as ever. 

For a while the air is cooler, but the sun has not been 
blown out, and Parthian-like he shoots his keenest 
arrows in retreat. And as the shadows lengthen along 
the ground the heat changes from that of a bonfire to 
that of an oven. When the sun is in mid-heaven we 
recognize the justice of the heat, abhor it as we ma3\ 
The sun is hot. But when he has gone, we resent the 
accursed legacy of stifling heat he leaves us. His post- 



64 Tlie Indian Seasons. 

humous calor is intolerable. It chokes the breath by 
its dead intensit}^, like the fell atmosphere that hung 
round the dragon-daughter of Ypocras in her bedevilled 
castle in the Isle of Colos. 

A wind makes pretense of blowing, but while it bor- 
rows heat from the ground, it does not lend it coolness. 
The city, however, is abroad again. Children go hy 
with their nurses ; the shops are doing business. In the 
bazaars the everj'-da}^ crowd is noisy, along the roads 
the red-aproned bheesties sprinkle their feeble handfuls, 
and the world is out to enjoy such pleasures as it maj^ 
on May-da}^ " in the plains." In the countr}^ the 
peasant is brisk again, and trudges away from his work 
cheerily ; bands of women affect to make merry with 
discordant singing as they pass along the fields ; the 
TDirj cattle are being herded in the villages. And in 
the garden the birds assemble to saj^ good-night. They 
are all in the idlest of humors, and, their da3^'s work 
over, are sauntering about in the air and from tree to 
tree, or congregating in vagrom do-nothing crowds — 
the elders idle, the younger mischievous. In bird^ 
dom the crows take the place of gamins, and spend the 
mauvais quart d'heure in vexing their betters* An old 
kite, tired with his long flights and sulky under the 
grievance of a shabbilj-filled stomach, crouches on the 
roof, his feathers ruffled about him. He is not looking 
for food ; it is getting too late, and he knows that in 
half an hour his place will be taken by the owls, and 
that before long the jackals will be trj^ing to worrj^ a 
supper off the bones which he scraped for his break- 
fast. But the crow is in no humor for sentiment. He 
has stolen during the day, and eaten, enough to make 
memory a joy forever. On his full stomach he grows 



In Hot Weather. 65 



pert, and in his vulgar street-boy fashion, affronts the 
ill-fed bird of pre3'. With a wily step he approaches 
him from behind and pulls at his longest tail-feather, 
or, sidling alongside, pecks at an outstretched wing. 
Even when inactive, his simple presence worries the 
kite, for he cannot tell what his tormentor is devising. 
But he has not -long to wait, for the crow, which from a 
foot off has been derisively studying the kite in silence, 
suddenly opens his mouth, and utters a cry of warning. 
The chattering garden is hushed, small birds escape to 
shelter, the larger fly up into the air, or on to the high- 
est coigns of vantage, and look round for the enemy. 
The crow, encouraged by success, again warns the 
world, and his brethren come flocking round, anxious to 
pester something, but not quite certain as to the danger 
that threatens. But the crow is equal to the occasion, 
and by wheeling in a circle round the inoffensive kite, 
and making a sudden swoop towards it, points out to 
them the object of his feigned terror. At once his cue 
is taken, and with a discord of cries, to which Plsani's 
angry barbiton in the story of Zanoni was music, they 
surround the sulking bird. It seems as if at every 
swoop they would strike the crouching kite from his 
perch, but thej^ know too well to tempt the curved beak, 
the curved talons, and though approaching near they 
never touch him. The kite has only to make the motion 
of flight, and his tormentors widen their circles. But 
he cannot submit to the indiguit}^ long, and slowly un- 
folding his wide wings, the carrion-bird launches himself 
upon the air. Meanwhile the sparrows are clubbing 
under the roof, and their discussions are noisy. The 
mynas pace the lawn, exchanging commonplaces with 
their fellows by their side, or those who pass homeward 

5 



66 The Indian Seasons. 

overhead. The little birds are slipping into the bushes, 
where thej^ will pass the hours of sleep ; while from 
everywhere come the voices of Nature making arrange- 
ments for the night. 

One little bird closes the day with a song of thanks. 
He is a sweet little songster — do 3^ou know him ? — a 
dapper bird, dressed, as a gentleman should be in the 
evening, in black and white, with a shapely figure, a 
neatly turned tail, "and all the gestures of a bird of the 
world. Choosing a low bough, one well leafed, he 
screens himself from the world, and for an hour pours 
out upon the hot evening air a low, sweet, throbbing 
song. He appears to sing unconscious^ : his notes run 
over of their own accord, without any effort. The bird 
rather thinks aloud in song than sings. I have seen 
him warbling in the wildest, poorest corner, the knuckl'e- 
end of the garden. At first I thought he was all alone. 
But soon I saw sitting above him, with every gesture 
of interested attention, two crested bulbuls, the night- 
ingales of Hafiz. They were listening to the little 
solitary minstrel, recognizing in the pied songster a 
master of their song. And so he went on singing to his 
pretty audience until the moon began to rise. And 
with a sudden rush from behind the citrons' shade the 
night-jar tumbled out upon the evening air. 



The Rains. 67 



II. 

THE EAmS. 

" And the rain it raineth every day." 

Twelfth Night. 

FOR many weeks there had been nothing doing, 
— a piping time of heat, when the sun and the 
moon divided the twenty-four hours between them. But 
all that has been changed, and on Monday came the 
rain. At first only wind. But I had heard the jack- 
tree whispering of what was coming, and among the 
plantains I saw that there was a secret hatching — and 
then on a sudden came - the strong gust, rain-heralding. 
The wind came sweeping up, clearing the way for the 
rain that was close behind, and then the rain, on the 
earth that was gasping for it, descended in great, round, 
solemn drops. 

And how suddenly did all nature become aware of the 
change ! The grateful earth sent up in quick response 
its thanks in a scent as fragrant to us in India as is the 
glorious bouquet of the haj^-fields at home. The joyous 
birds flitted here and there, hymning the bursting of the 
monsoon, and all the dusty trees broke out into laugh- 
ing green. The swallow came down from the clouds to 
hawk among the shrubs, for a strange insect world was 
abroad, the sudden rain having startled into uncustom- 
ary daylight the night-loving moth and the feeble swarm 
that peoples the crepuscule. The young parrots, insolent 



68 The Indian Seasons. 

though tailless, revelled among the neem-trees' harsh 
berries, while from the softened earth, in spite of the 
falling rain, the m3'nas were busy pulling out the care- 
lessl}^ jocund worms. Even the wretched babblers, who 
had hoped to raise a second brood of young, and whose 
nest has in an hour become a dripping pulp, hopped, 
and not unmirthfull}', about. The peacocks came out 
and danced. Even the crow was festive. But the rain 
that washed the aloes clean has also soaked out from 
their lair among them the ringed snakes, so the mun- 
goose is holding high carnival. But hark ! Already a 
frog? — yes, a shrivelled batrachian who, for many 
sun-plagued weeks had been Ijing by in a dusty water- 
pipe, feels suddenly the rush of warm rain-water, and 
his dusty, shrunken shell is carried out into the aqueduct. 
With reviving strength he stems the tide, and is soon 
safely on the bank. Can it be true ? and he plunges 
into the living water again, his shrivelled body — like 
that curious Rose of Jericho — plumping out as it 
greedily absorbs the grateful liquid ; and soon the lean 
and wretched frog, whom a week ago a hungry crow 
would have scorned to eat (though a stomach-denying 
crow is as rare as a Parsee beggar) , becomes the same 
bloated monster in yellow and green that last year 
harassed us with his importunate demonstrations of 
pleasure. " And for als moche as " he has thus cheaply 
attained to respectability, he is inflated with pride. 
Mandeville thanked God with humility for the keeping 
of the good company of many lords, but the frog un- 
asked thrusts himself and his amours upon our notice, 
holding with the Saracens that man is only the j^ounger 
brother of swine. We welcome the rain, but could do 
well without the frogs. 



The Bains. 69 



''The croaking of frogs," said Martin Luther at his 
table, " edifies nothing at all; it is mere sophistry and 
fruitless;" and indeed I wish we were without these 
vile batrachians. It is not to me at all incredible that 
the Abderites should have gone into voluntary exile 
rather than share their country unequally with frogs. 

In all "the majesty of mud" they crouch on the 
weedy bank, croaking proudly to their dames below, 
who, their speckled bodies concealed, rest their chins 
upon the puddle- top, croaking in soft repty. Was ever 
lady wooed with such damp, disheartening circumstance, 
— the night dark, the sky filled with drifting clouds, a 
thin rain falKng ? Round the puddle's sloppy edge — the 
puddle itself a two hours' creation — has sprouted up a 
rank fringe of squashy green-stuff, and in this the moist 
lover serenades the fair. She would listen flabbily to 
his beguilements all night long, but suddenly round the 
corner comes a dog-cart. His position might be heroic, 
certainly it is ridiculous. Shall he die at his post, be 
crushed by a whirling wheel for her he loves, or shall 
he — get out of the way ? The earth shakes below the 
cavalier ; this is no time to hesitate ; shall he move ? 
Tes ; and plop ! within an inch of his charmer's nose he 
has landed in the puddle. But such accidents are infre- 
quent ; the cavalier, we regret to know, generally sere- 
nades all night. By day he sleeps beneath a stone, 
fitting himself into a dry hole, — for frogs dare not go 
out in the daytime. Crows trifle with them, spit them 
on their black beaks, and perhaps eat them. Cats, too, 
will amuse themselves with frogs ; even the more chiv- 
alrous dog will not disdain to bite a frog when he comes 
suddenly upon one round a corner. In the evening, 
however, he takes his hops abroad, makes his meal of 



70 The Indian Seasons. 

ants, and starts off to the nearest place of pleasure. 
Shall it be the municipal tank, — the public assembly- 
rooms, — where the compan3', though numerous, is very 
mixed ; or some private soiree musicale, where the com- 
pany is select, and the risks of interruption fewer? His 
journe}^ is not without its peculiar perils. What if, by 
mistake, he jumps down the well? the one in which live 
onl}^ those two old gentlemen, wretched bachelors, who, 
sall3'ing forth one night — just such a night as this — to 
serenade a fair one, mistook their way, saw water glis- 
tening, thought they heard her voice, and plumped down 
twent}^ feet. They never got out again, and there they 
are to this da}^, old and childless ; their croak is sullen 
and defiant, for the}^ are down a deep well, and can't 
get out. " It is enough to sour one's temper," acknowl- 
edges our frog ; and he goes forth delicately, looking 
before he leaps. " Living in such a world, I seem to 
be a frog abiding in a dried-up well." The Upanishad 
contains no happier illustration than this. 

How the rain pours down ! A wall, beneath which 
he has rested to croak awhile, cracks, gapes, and falls. 
B}^ a miracle and a very long jump he escapes ; but his 
jump has landed him in the lively rivulet which is now 
swirling down the middle of the road, and so, before he 
can draw his legs up or collect his thoughts, he is rolled 
along with sticks and gravel into a ditch, sucked into a 
water-pipe, squirted out at the other end, received b}^ a 
rushing drain, and, ere he can extricate himself, is being 
whirled along towards the river, where live the barbarous 
paddy-bird and the ruthless adjutant- crane. Better, he 
thinks, that the wall had fallen on him. But if he does 
get safe to his friends, with what gusto is he hailed ! 
At his first note the company becomes aware of a strange 



TJie Rains. 71 



presence, and in silence they receive his second ; and 
then they recognize his voice, and with redoubled vol- 
ume the chorus recommences — for the night. 

One of the twenty-one hells of Manu is filled with 
mud. I believe it to be for the accommodation of 
frogs. 

The insect world, which during the hot weather was 
held in such small account, now holds itself supreme. 
Convinced themselves that entomolog}^ is the finest 
study in the world, the insects carry their doctrine at 
their tails' point to convince others. Ever}^ one must 
learn and be quite clear about the difference between a 
black mosquito with grey spots, and a grej^ mosquito 
with black spots. There must be no confusion between 
a fly which stings you if 3^ou touch it, and a fly which if 
it touches you stings. No one can pretend to ignore 
the insect invaders — the bullety beetles and maggoty 
ants. Nobody can profess to do so. It is impossible 
to appear unconscious of long-legged terrors that 
silently drop on your head, or shiny, nodular ones that 
rush at your face and neck with a buzz in the 
steamj^ evenings in the rains. A tarantula on the tow- 
el-horse, especially if it is standing on tiptoe, is too pal- 
pable, and no one can pretend not to see it there. 
Spiders weighing an ounce, however harmless, are too 
big and too puff'y to be treated with complete indifference. 
Then there is a pestilent animal resembling a black- 
beetle, with its head a good deal pulled off*, having fish- 
hooks at the ends of its legs, with which it grips 3'ou, 
and will not let go. Centipedes, enjoying a luxury of 
legs, (how strange that they are not proud!) think 
nothing, a mere trifle at most, of leaving all their toes 
sticking behind them when they run up your legs. It is 



72 The Indian Seasons. 

an undecided point whether the toes do not grow new 
centipedes ; at any rate the centipede grows new toes. 
Ridiculous round beetles tumble on their backs and 
scramble and slide about the dinner-table till they get 
a purchase on the cruet-stand, up which the}- climb in a 
deliberate and solemn manner, and having reached the 
top, go forthwith headlong into the mustard. Sometimes 
they get out again unperceived, but an irregular track 
of mustard on the cloth, with a drop wherever the 
beetle stopped to take breath, leads to the discovery of 
the wanderer sitting among the salad and pretending 
to be a caper. Then again there are oval beetles, 
which never tumble on their backs, but dart about so 
quickly that 3'ou are uncertain whether something did 
or did not go into the soup, until 3'ou find them at the 
bottom. Many other insects come to the festive board, 
unbidden guests ; grasshoppers, with great muscular 
powers, but a deplorable lack of direction ; minute mon- 
ey-spiders that drop from your eyebrows by a thread 
which they make fast to your nose ; flimsj'-winged flies 
that are always being singed, and forthwith proceed to 
spin round on their backs and hum in a high key ; straw- 
colored crickets that sit and twiddle their long antennae 
at 3^ou as if they never intended moving again, and then 
suddenly launch themselves with a jerk into your claret ; 
fat,* comfortable-bodied moths, with thick, slippery 
wings, which bang phut-phut against the ceihng, until 
they succeed in dropping themselves down the chimney 
of the lamp. All these, however, are the ruck, the 
rabble, the tag-rag and bob-tail that follow the leader — 
the white ant. The white ant ! What an enormous 
power this insect wields, and how merciless it is in the 
exercise of it ! Here the houses may not have gardens. 



The Bains. 73 



there the builder must use no wood. In this place 
people have to do without carpets, and in that without 
a public park. Ever^^thing must be of metal, glass, or 
stone that rests on the ground even for a few hours, 
or when you return to it, it will be merely the shell of 
its former self. Ruthless, omnivorous, the white ant 
respects nothing. And when in the rains it invades the 
house, what horrors supervene ! The lamps are seen 
through a 3'ellow haze of fluttering things ; the side-board 
is strewn with shed wings ; the night-lights sputter in a 
paste of corpses, and the corners of the rooms are alive 
with creeping, fluttering ants, less destructive, it is true, 
than in the "infernal wriggle of maturit}'," but more 
noisome because more bulk}^ and more obtrusive. The 
novelt}^ of wings soon palls upon the white ants ; the}- 
find they are a snare, and try to get rid of them as soon 
as possible. The^^ have not forgotten the first few min- 
utes of their winged existence, when they were drifting 
on the wind with birds all round them, when so many 
of their brothers and sisters disappeared with a snap of 
a beak, and when they themselves were only saved 
from the same fate by being blown into a" bush. From 
this refuge they saw their comrades pouring out of the 
hole in the mud wall, spreading their weak, wide wings, 
giving themselves up to the wind, — which gave them 
up to the kites wheeling and recurving amongst the fiut- 
tering swarm, to the crows, noisy and coarse even at 
their food, to the quick-darting mynas, and the grace- 
ful, sliding- king-crow; A mungoose on the bank made 
frequent raids upon the unwinged crowd that clustered 
at the mouth of the hole, keeping an eye the while on 
the kites, which ever and anon, with the easiest of 
curves, but the speed of a crossbow bolt, swooped at him 



74 Tlu Indian Seasons. 

as he vanished into his citadel. Overhead sat a vulture 
in the sulks, provoked at having been persuaded to come 
to catch ants [" Give me a good wholesome cat out of 
the river "] , and wondering that the kites could take the 
trouble to swallow such small morsels. But the vulture 
is alone in his opinion if he thinks that white ants are 
' not an important feature of the rains. The fields may 
blush green, and jungles grow, in a week, but unless 
the white ants and their allies — hard-bodied and soft- 
bodied — come with the new leaves, the rains would 
hardly be the rains. 

Eaining ! and apparently not going to stop. The 
trees are all standing in their places quiet as whipped 
children, not a leaf daring to stir while the thunder 
grumbles and scolds. Now and again comes up a 
blast of wet wind, driving the rain into fine spray 
before it and shaking all the garden. The bamboos 
are taken b}^ surprise, and swa}^ in confusion here and 
there ; but, as the wind settles down to blow steadil}^ 
their plumed boughs sway in graceful unison. The 
tough teak-tree hardl}^ condescends to acknowledge the 
stirring influence, and flaps its thick leaves lazil}^ ; the 
jamun is fluttered from crown to stem ; the feathery 
tamarinds are shivering in consternation, and, panic- 
stricken, t|ie acacias toss about their tasselled leaves. 
There is something almost piteous in the way the plan- 
tain receives the rude wind. It throws up its long 
leaves in an agony, now drops them down again in 
despair, now flings them helplessly about. But it is 
not often that there is high wind with the rain. Gen- 
erally there is only rain, — ver}^ much. The birds knew 
what was coming when they saw the drifting clouds 



The Rains. 75 



being huddled together, and the air has been filled this 
hour past with their warning cries. They have now 
gone clamorous home. The green parrots, birds of the 
world as they are, went over long ago, screaming and 
streaming by. The crows, too, after casting about for 
a nearer shelter, have flung themselves across the sky 
towards the hospitable city. But after a long interval 
come by the last birds, who have dawdled over that 
"one worm more" too long, caUing out as they pass 
to their comrades far ahead to wait for them ; and then, 
after another while, comes " the very last bird," — for 
when the storm is at its worst, there is always one more 
to pass, flying too busily to speak, and scudding heavily 
across the sloping rain. The young crow meant to have 
seen the storm out, and so he kept his seat on the roof, 
and in the insolence of his glossy j^outh rallied his old 
relatives escaping from the wet ; but a little later, as he 
flapped his spongy wings ruefully homeward, he re- 
gretted that he had not listened to the voice of experi- 
ence. For the rain is raining, — raining as if the water 
were tired of the world's existence, — raining as if the 
rain hated the earth with its flowers and fruits. 

And now the paths begin to show how heavy the fall 
is. On either side runs down a fussy stream, all pitted 
with rain-spot dimples, from which the larger stones jut 
out like pigmy Tenerifles in a mimic Atlantic ; but the 
rain still comes down, and the two fussy streams soon 
join into a shallow, smoothly flowing sheet, and there 
is nothing from bank to bank but water-bubbles hurrj'- 
ing down ; yet, haste as they may, they get their crowns 
broken by the rain-drops before they reach the corner. 
And now you begin to suspect rain on the sunken lawn ; 
but before long there is no room for mere suspicion, for 



76 Tlic Indian Seasons. 

the level water is showing white through the green 
grass, in which the shrubs stand ankle-deep. How 
patiently the flowers wait in their ditches, bending their 
poor heads to the ground, and turning up their green 
calices to be pelted ! But besides the trees and flowers 
and washed-out insects, there are but few creatures out 
in the rain. Here comes a seal carrying a porpoise on 
his back. No ! it is our friend the bheest^-. Dripping 
like a seaweed, a thing of all weathers, he splashes by 
through the dreary waste of waters like one of the pre- 
Adamite creatures in the Period of Sludge. Who can 
want water at such a time as this? 3'ou feel inclined to 
ask, as the shiny bheesty, bending under his shiny 
water-skin, squelches past, his red apron, soaked to a 
deep maroon, clinging to his knees. A servant re- 
members something left out of doors, and with his 
master's wrath very present to him, detaches his mouth 
from the hookah bowl, and with his foolish skirts tucked 
round his waist, paddles out into the rain, showing be- 
hind his plaited umbrella like a toadstool on its travels. 
A 3'oung pariah dog goes by less dust}^ and less miser- 
able than usual. The rain has taken much of the curl 
out of his tail, but he is, and he knows it, safer- in 
the rain. There are no" buggies passing now, from 
beneath whose hoods, as the vivid lightning leaps out 
of the black clouds, will leap sharp whip-lashes, curling 
themselves disagreeably round his thin loins, or tingling 
across his pink nose. There are no proud carriages 
with arrogant drivers to be rude to him if he stands 
still for a minute in the middle of the road to think ; no 
older dogs on the watch to dispute, and probably to 
ravish from him, his infrequent treasure trove. The 
worms, too, Hke the rain, for they can creep easily over 



The Bains. 77 



the slab ground, opening and shutting up their bodies 
like telescopes. The dank frogs doat on it. They 
hop impatiently out, albeit in a stealthy way, from 
clammy corners, behind pillars, and under flower-pots, 
to see if their ditches are filling nicel}^, and hop back 
happy. 

When it rains there are, to those inside the house, 
two sounds, a greater and a less, and it is curious, and 
very characteristic of our humanity, that the less alwa3's 
seems the greater. The one is the great dead sound of 
falling water — the out-of-doors being rained' upon — 
almost too large to hear. The other is the splashing of 
our eaves. Outside, the heavens are faUing in detail, 
but the sound comes to us only in its great expanse, 
more large than loud, heard only as a vast mutter. At 
our verandah's edge is a poor spout noisily spurting its 
contents upon the gravel-path, and 3'et it is onlj to our 
own poor spout that we give heed.. Ifiit gives a sudden 
spurt, we sa}', "How it is raining! just listen" — to 
the spout. The sullen roar of the earth submitting to 
the rain we hardly remark. We listen to the patch of 
plantains complaining of every drop that falls upon 
them, but take no note of the downward rush of water 
on the long-suffering, silent grass. But when it is rain- 
ing be so good as to remark the ducks. The}^ are being 
bred for your table, a private speculation of the cook's, 
but they are never fed, so they have to feed themselves. 
Dhiner deferred maketh ducks mad, so they sally forth 
in a quackering series to look for worms. Nevertheless 
they loiter to wash. Was ever enjoyment more thorough 
than that of ducks accustomed to live in a cook-house 
(in the corner by the stove) who have been let out on a 
rainy da}^ ? They can hardly waddle for joy, and stag- 



78 The Indian Seasons. 

ger past, jostling each other with ill-balanced and gawk}^ 
gestures. And now they have reached the water. How 
they bob their heads and plume their feathers, turning 
their beaks over their backs and quackering in subdued 
tones ! In their element they grow courageous, for the 
communist crow who has left his shelter to see " what 
on earth those ducks can have got," and who has settled 
near them, is promptly charged, beak lowered, by the 
drake, who waggles his curly tail in pride as the evil 
:fowl goes flapping away. 

But let the ducks quacker their short lives out in the 
garden puddles — the carrion crow is off to the river, 
for the great river is in flood, and many a choice morsel, 
it knows, is floating down to the sea. Videlicet the 
succulent kid ; guinea-fowls surprised on their nests by 
the sudden water ; young birds that had sat chirping for 
help on bush and stone as the flood rose up and up, the 
parent birds fluttering round, powerless to help and wild 
with protracted sorrow ; snakes which hiding in their 
holes had hoped to tire out the water, but which, when 
the banks gave wa}^, were swept struggling out into the 
current ; the wild cat's litter, which the poor mother with 
painful toil had carried into the deepest cranny of the 
rock, drowned in a cluster, and floating down the river 
to the muggurs.-^ 

The muggur is a gross pleb, and his features stamp 
him low-born. His manners are coarse. The wading 
heifer has hardly time to utter one terror-stricken groan 
ere she is below the crimson-bubbled water. Woe to 
the herdsman if he leads his kine across the ford. The 
water-fowl floating on the river, the patient ibis, the 
grave sarus-cranes, fare ill if they tempt the squalid 

1 Broad-snouted crocodile. 



The Rains. 79 



brute. The ghurial ^ is of a finer breed. Living in the 
water he seeks his food in it, and does not flaunt his 
Maker with improvidence by wandering on the dry 
earth in search of sustenance. But at times the coarse 
admixture of his blood shows out, and he imitates his 
vulgar cousin in tying by the water's edge, where the 
grazing kine may loiter, the weary peasant be trudging 
unobservant towards his home, his little son gathering 
drift-wood along the flood-line as he goes. 

And the flood is out over the gardens and fields. Out 
on the broad lagoon, the gray- white kingfisher, with 
its shrill cry, is shooting to and fro where yesterday 
the feeble-winged thrush-babblers were wrangling over 
worms : the crocodile rests his chin on the grass-knoll 
where a few hours ago two rats were sporting. See the 
kingfisher, — how he darts from his watch-tower, checks 
suddenly his forward flight, starts upwards for a moment, 
hovering over the water with craning neck. And now 
his quick-beating wings close, and straight as a falling 
aerolite he drops, his keen, strong beak cleaving the 
way before him. And with what an exultant sweep he 
comes up, with the fish across his bill ! The kingfisher 
is too proud to blunder: if he touches the water he 
strikes his prey ; but rather than risk failure, he swerves 
when in his downward course to swerve had seemed im- 
possible, and skimming the ruffled surface goes back to 
his watch-tower. He would not have his mate on the 
dead branch 3'onder see him miss his aim ; rather than 
hazard discomfiture he simulates contempt, turning back 
with a cheery cry to her side, while the lucky fishlet 
darts deep among the weeds. 

The great river is in flood. " Oh, Indra the Rain- 

1 Sliarp-snouted crocodile. 



80 The Indian Seasons. 

giver, by all th}^ Vedic glories, we invoke thee, be 
merciful ! " Miles down they will know it by the sudden 
rush, — the bridges of boats that will part asunder, and 
the clumsy, high-prowed native craft that will sink ; but 
here, where the mischief has its source, where the heavy 
rain is falling and the deluge brewing, there is nothing 
to mark the change. But the river swells up secretly, 
as it were, from underneath. The flood is to be a 
surprise ; and lo ! suddenly, the water is spread out on 
either side, over crops and grass fields. Where are the 
islands gone on which the wiseacre adjutant-birds were 
yesterdaj^ promenading? Are those babool-trees or 
fishermen's platforms out yonder in the middle of the 
river? Surely there used to be a large field hereabouts 
with a buff'alo's whitened skull Ij'ing in the corner, and a 
young mango-tree growing about the middle of it? 
Can that be the mango-tree yonder where the current 
takes a sudden swerve ? Alas for the squirrels that had 
their nest in it ! Alas for the vagrant guinea-fowl 
which far from home had hidden her speckled eggs in 
the tall tussock of sharp-edged grass which grew by the 
buff'alo skull ! 

Those two villages j'onder were yesterday separated 
only by a green valley streaked by a hundred footpaths ; 
they now look at each other across a lake. The kine 
used to know their way home, but are [puzzled. Here, 
they feel certain, is the tree at which yesterday they 
turned to the right, and this is the path which led them 
down a hill and up another, but it ends to-day in water ! 
How cautiously they tread their way, sinking lower, 
lower — so gradually that we can hardly tell that they 
have begun to swim ; but there is now a rod and more 
between the last cow and the shore where the herdsman 



The Rains. 81 



stands watching. He sees them cUmb out on the other 
side, one behind the other, sees their broad backs sloped 
against the hill before him. Then they reach the top 
and lowing break into a trot, disappearing gladly behind 
the mud walls which contain their food ; and the herds- 
man turns and trudges the circuit of the invading water. 

One year the Ganges and the Jumna conspired to- 
gether to flood the province, and suddenly swelling 
over their banks, desolated in a night half the busy city 
of Allahabad. We brought our boat up to the new 
lagoons, and for a whole day sailed about among name- 
less islands, great groves of bird-deserted trees, and the 
ruins of many villages, amid scenes as strange and as 
beautiful as we shall ever see again. The Maruts, 
armed with their hundred-jointed bolts, and the storm- 
god Peru, of the thunder-black hair and beard of light- 
ning-gold, who goes rumbling over the midnight clouds 
astride a millstone — and all the little hearth-spirits 
quake at his going and fear falls upon the house — had 
been abroad for inan}^ days. And the river-gods were 
up at their bidding, and the clouds poured into the 
rivers, and the rivers drove down to the sea. And be- 
fore the pitiless rush of the flood, what difference 
between man and beast? All of them rats alike, poor 
creeping folk, flooded out of their holes. The same 
wind and rain tore the crow's nest from the tree and the 
roof from the native's hut ; the same flood carried the 
two away together. The tiger, the man, and the wood- 
louse were all on one platform, and that which crept 
highest was the best among them. 

Starting in our boat from the spot where once four 
cross-roads had met, we crossed over towards the belt 
of trees that hides the city from sight as j'ou look 

6 



82 The Indian Seasons. 

westward. Deep down beneath us, patient crops of 
millet were standing in their places, waiting for the 
water to pass away ; acres of broad-leafed melons 
looked up at our boat as we wound in and out 
among the trees and little temples. With some thirty 
feet of water below us we floated over the brickfields 
and came to a village, and, skirting the ruins of the 
suburbs, passed out again through a tope of mango-trees 
into the open. A garden lay before us. The pillars of 
the gateway had strange animals upon the tops of them, 
rampant against shields ; but in the flood they looked 
as if the}' were standing tiptoe upon their hind legs in 
the hope of keeping out of the water which lapped over 
their clawed feet. Over the wall and into the garden. 
Such a place for Naiads ! The tops of plantain-trees 
instead of lotus-pads, for bulrushes bamboo spikes, and 
instead of water-tangle the fair green crowns of bushes, 
lit up with blossoms. Rustling through the guava-tops, 
half-ripened citrons knocking against our boat's keel, 
we pass out over the other wall of the garden, and 
found ourselves in a superb canal, avenued on either 
side with tamarinds, their lowest branches dipping in 
the flood, and closed in at the further end with a 
handsome pleasure-house that stood — the only building, 
except the stone-built temples, that had braved the rush 
of the escaping river — knee-deep in the water. The 
scene had all the charms of land and water, without the 
blemishes of either ; for the water had no vulgar banks, 
no slim}^ slopes nor leprous sand-patches ; while the 
houses had no lower stories, and the round crowns of 
foliage no unsightly trunks. And there was not ,a 
human being in sight ! River terns swept in and out 
among the garden trees, furrowing the new water-fields 



The Bains. 83 



with their orange bills, and resting, when tired, upon 
the painted balconies of the pleasure-house. 

And we rowed past the dwarfed walls with the dreary, 
pleasant sound of the flood lapping against them, and 
passed down the statety reach of water till we came to the 
beautiful temple of Mahadeva, that lifts up its crown of 
maroon and gold high out of the solemn hush of the trees 
among which its foundations lie. A golden god glittered 
at the point — a star to the people. The gate was closed, 
but as we lay on our oars before it, there came, on the 
sudden from within, the clanging of the temple bell, that 
through all the year rings in every hour of night or day ! 
Who was pulling the bell? A merman? Perhaps, for- 
saken by all his priests, the god himself! We shouted. 
A tern was startled by tfie shout, and an owl fell out of a 
hole in the w^all ; but there was no reply. Another 
shout, however, was answered — was it a human voice ? — 
and then we heard the unseen bell-ringer swimming 
to the gate. It opened after much trouble and splash- 
ing, and we floated into the enclosure, came into the 
Lake of Silence, our guide swimming alongside. What 
a strangely sacred place it seemed, this temple to Maha- 
deva ! Up to its terrace in water, the marble bulls 
conchant in the flood, on which floated here and there 
the last votive marigolds thrown before the god, the 
shrine was the very emblem of Faith, as it reared its 
glittering crown skyward up above the creeping, treach- 
erous water, — in the hands of the Philistines perhaps, 
but the Samson nevertheless, — its feet in the toils, but 
head erect to heaven. We all talked in a more or less 
maudlin waj^, for sentiment made a fool of each in turn. 
But no one of us who saw it can forget that strange 
Indian scene. The gracious water sparkled from wall 



84 The Indian Seasons. 

to wall of the small enclosure, concealing all the dirt 
of the common earth, and all that was impure or 
unsightly round the foot of the temple. The flowering 
bushes rested their blossoms on the water, and the shrubs 
showed only their green crowns. The squalor and 
clamor of an Indian temple were all gone, and in their 
stead was the cleansing, mock-reverent water and the 
silence of Dreamland. The glamour of the place was 
strange beyond words. For sound there was only the 
plash of the water-bird's wing, and the rhythmic lapping 
of the flood against the balconades. For the view, it was 
hemmed in by the tree-tops that overlooked the enclosure 
on all four sides. But within the small area was all that 
enchantment needed. It was Fair^'land, with only a 
bright summer's sun shining upon ever}' thing to remind 
us of the e very-day earth. But suddenly the bell rang 
again. Fairjland or not, the hours were passing. So 
we floated out of the doorway again into the exquisite 
water-road, and sailed awa}'. Look where we would, 
water, water, water, margined and broken by groves of 
trees, with here and there a suspicion of ruined houses 
from which now and again came wailing along the water 
the cr}^ of some deserted dog. But nothing of everj^-da}^ 
life ! Where were the villages, with their cracked mud 
walls? the loitering natives, the roads and their dusty 
traffic? the creeping, creaking bullock-carts, and the 
jingling ekkas, baboo-laden? There were no parrot- 
ravaged crops, no muddy buff'aloes, no limping, sneaking 
pariah dogs to remind us of India. Even the kites, sail- 
ing in great circles above the broad sunlit water, did not 
seem the same birds that a few days before wheeled in 
hopes of oflfal round the village. The vulture on the 
palm-top was a verj- Jatayus among vultures. Where 



The Bains. ' 85 



were we then but in Dreamland ? A solitary palm — do 
you remember how Xerxes went out of his way with his 
army to do homage to the great plane-tree that queened 
it in the desert alone ? — attracted us, and we sailed for 
it. All great trees grow alone. This one was standing 
between two round little islands bright with young grass, 
so close and clean that they looked like green velvet 
footstools for some giant's use. Their shores were 
fringed with drift-wood and strange jetsam, among which 
bobbed up and down some great round palm-fruit ; and 
on the top of each island sat a solitary crow. They had 
come, no doubt, from Kurghalik, the capital (so Thibetan 
legends say) of crowdom. At any rate, they were 
Dreamland crows. The}^ were less criminal in appear- 
ance than earth crows ; they did not insult us by word or 
gesture, for they did not caw once ; nor, when we ap- 
proached, did they sidle or hop sideways. Some of my 
readers may not easily believe in such a revolution of 
crow nature, but those take high ground who maintain 
that no change of character, however violent, is impos- 
sible. Did not Alcibiades the volupt become a Spartan 
for the nonce ! Remember Saul of Tarsus. 

As we landed, one crow raised itself with all the 
dignity of a better bird, and with three solemn flaps 
passed over to the central top of the farther island ; and 
when we went there to take possession of it also ' ' in 
the Queen's name," both of them flapped with three 
strokes back to the first. And we christened one island 
Engedi, for we remembered Holy Writ, "exalted as 
the palm-tree in Engedi ; " and the other we called 
the Loochoo Island, for Loochoo means in Japanese, 
' ' the Islet in a Waste of Waters " — a great deal 
for a word to mean, but true nevertheless. Humpty- 



The Indian Seasons, 



Dumpty would have called it a '' portmanteau word." 
And we gave the crows commissions as Lieutenant- 
Governors from Her Majesty Queen Victoria, quamdiu 
se bene gesserint. And then we went on to another 
island, a long one with a tree in the middle. And 
under the tree stood a white calf, so we knew at once 
that this was a water-calf. For there was no land it 
could have come from within sight, and no human being 
but ourselves within a mile of it on either side. And 
at night when thieves bring their boats to steal what 
they consider quite an ordinary calf, deserted, they 
think, by its owner when the swift flood overtook himj 
the calf no doubt dives under the water, and thus evades 
them. 

The rest of the islands were deserted. The ruins of 
houses and temples, waist-deep in water, showed that 
within recent times there had been inhabitants of this 
strange and beautiful archipelago. Icthyophagi no 
doubt. There was nothing else for them to eat. But 
just now the birds were alone. All round us the king- 
fishers (long ma}' ye live before 3'e become poor men's 
barometers !) poised in the air, and, wild as the cr}^ of 
the wild ass in the Bikanir deserts, came to us the 
scream of the fishing-hawk. But no — the birds were 
not alone. The flood had driven from the earth its mul- 
titude of creeping folk : snakes hung across the forks of 
trees, or basked on the branches ; centipedes crawled 
upon floating rubbish ; and many bushes were black to 
every tip with thronging ants. In one tree-hollow we 
surprised strange compan}?" — a pair of gorgeous dhaman 
snakes, three bran-new centipedes bright as copper, a 
most villainous-looking spider, and a gem of a frog, a 
little metallic creature that showed among the foul crew 



The Bains. 87 



like the maiden among Comus's companions. We dis- 
turbed them rudely, and then went in pursuit of a bandicoot 
that was swimming to an unwonted roost — poor wretch ! 
— in a citron tree. A little bird was sitting on a bush, 
scratching its head, its day's work over, and thinking 
of nothing in particular ; but a hawk that had had no 
dinner came by, and gave it something to think about. 
A pariah dog had a litter upon a patch of tiles, all that 
remained of a house-roof, and we rescued the starveling 
brute. A rat floated by in a sieve : another was cruis- 
ing more dryly in a gourd. Look at that squirrel ! The 
imposture is out. So long as he had the firm earth to 
fall back upon, he lived bravely enough in the trees ; 
but now that he has onlj^ the trees, he is starving. The 
' ' tree squirrel " forsooth ! But was there no Isis or 
Osiris, no Apis of the " awful front," nor dog-headed 
Anubis to tell it that the floods were coming? In 
Egypt some one tells the crocodiles every year how 
high the Nile will rise ; for let the sourceless river rise 
never so much, the great suarian's eggs are always found 
above the reach of the highest wave. But the squirrel 
without the ground is better off" than a grasshopper 
without grass to hop in : it is then a poor thing indeed. 
One hopped into our boat — a desperate leap for life — 
such as egg-seekers take at the dangling rope on St. 
Kilda's face. I remember reading in Bacon that " the 
vigor of the grasshopper consists ou\y in their voices. " 
That they can make a noise out of all proportion to 
their size is true, but it seems to me that Bacon cast 
undeservedly a slur upon the " gaers toop." The 
particular grasshopper in point ma}^ have been a cripple, 
but, as a rule, the insect has a shrewd wa}^ of hopping 
that makes me think respectfully of his hind legs, and 



88 The Indian Seasons. 

looking into the matter, I find I am borne out by Sir 
Thomas Browne, who says, " whereto [that is leaping] 
it is ver}^ well conformed, for therein the [grasshopper] 
the legs behind are longer than all the body, and make 
at the second joint acute angles at a considerable ad- 
vancement above their bodies." Do not the French 
call the grasshopper sauterelle ? A poor beetle with the 
shoulders of Atlas and the thighs of Hercules, which in 
dryer weather drove headlong through the solid earth, 
heaving great pebbles up as Enceladus heaves Etna, 
was sprawling helpless as a moth upon the water. 
We rescued Goliath and went on. A frog, great with 
rain-water and inordinately puffed up, sat pudgily on a 
stump. It narrowly escaped with life, for the sight of it 
enwrathed us. Had the floods then (a nation's history 
closing in a sudden stroke of picturesque fate) tragi- 
cally closed an era, that a spotted frog might go com- 
fortably? The Empire of Assyria expiring with the 
flames of Sardanapalus's pj're — Babylon poured out 
under the feet of the Mede with the wine along Bel- 
shazzar's palace floor — the Icthyophagi succumbing to 
the united wrath of a continent's mightiest rivers, and 
gone to feed the fish the}^ fed on ! All this that a gape- 
mouthed batrachian might give itself complacent aii*s ! 
The earth submerged, the Caucasian a failure, and a 
frog happy ! A deluge, whirling men and their houses 
away to the sea, to be a holiday and a Golden Age for a 
gross amphibian ! The idea incensed us, and the frog 
was in a parlous state. But it escaped. 

Meanwhile the sun is setting, and we turn homewards 
— home in the dusk. The terns are all gone, but in 
their place the flying-foxes flap heavily along the water, 
and the owls hail us from all the shadows. How appro- 



The Bains. 



priate to the owl are the words of the poet (to the 
nightingale) — 

" Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly. 
Most musical, most melancholy." 

The very name too, ooloo^ is a sweet symphony. The 
frogs jeered as we passed. One of us recalled the 
lines — 

" You shall hare most delightful melodies as soon as you lay to 
your oars. 

" From whom ? 

" From swans — the frogs — wondrous ones." 

And SO through a chorus of exulting batrachians, 
home again to the solid earth, the noise of men, and 
the multitudinous chirping of birds. 



90 The Indian Seasons. 



III. 

THE COLD WEATHER. 

" Ah ! if to thee 
It feels Elysian, how rich to me, 
An exiled mortal, sounds its pleasant name ! 

let me cool me zephyr-boughs among ! " 

Endymion. 

CHRISTMAS EVE! Overhead is stretched the 
tent of heaven, and beneath the dome are ranged 
in full durbar the rajah-planets, attendant on them 
crowds of courtier-asteroids and stars. The durbar is 
assembled to welcome Christmas Day. The moon, the 
Vicero}^ of the daj^, presides, and all the feudatory 
luminaries of the empire are in their places, and the 
splendor of Hindoo Raja or Mahomedan Nawab is as 
nothing to that of Orion. How quiet all is ! Not a 
whisper or a movement as the galaxy of night awaits 
the arrival of Christmas Day. 

I was waiting for it too. The night seemed so still 
and calm that I felt as if somehow all the rest of the 
world had stolen away from their homes and gone some- 
where, leaving me alone to represent Europe at this re- 
ception of Christmas. Not that there were no sounds 
near me. There was my pony munching gram very 
audibly, my servants' hookahs sounded more noisily 
than usual ; the dogs under the .tree were gnawing bones, 



The Cold Weather, 91 

and not far from me, crouching beside a fire of wood, 
three villagers were cleaning a leopard skin. On the 
jheel behind me the wild geese were settling with con- 
gratulatory clamor. 

It is curious that those notes which, among birds, 
give expression to the unamiable feelings of anger and 
animosity, are more musical than the notes of love and 
pleasure. Among human beings no passion has evoked 
such sweet song as love. Among birds, however, the 
voice of love is more often wanting in sweetness. The 
bittern, when it calls to its mate, fills the dark reed-beds 
with the ghostliest sound that man has ever heard from 
the throat of a bird ; the cluck of the wooing cock, that 
crows so grandty when aroused to wrath or jealousy, is 
ridiculous ; the love-note of the bulbul is an inarticulate 
animal noise ; the crow-pheasant, — who does not know 
the whoo-whoo-whoo with which this strange bird, hidden 
in the centre foliage of a tree, summons its brooding 
mate? The mynas, again, how curious and inappro- 
priate are their love-notes ! But show the bulbul an- 
other of his sex, and in a voice most musically sweet 
he challenges the intruder to battle. Look at that 
strident king-crow swinging on the bamboo's tip. A 
rival passes, and with a long-drawn whistle he slides 
through the air, and in melodious antiphonythe strangers 
engage. Let the cock hear the lord of another seraglio 
emptying his lungs; and with what lusty harmony will 
he send him back the challenge ! 

Quite near me, too, the river was flowing over and 
among large stones, with a constant bubbling and occa- 
sional splash. But beyond the few yards lit by my 
camp-fires, in the great, pale, sleeping world, lit only 
by the cold stars, lying far and away beyond my tents, 
was a monochrome of silence. 



92 The Indian Seasons. 

And I sat at my tent-door smoking, smoking, think- 
ing of the day I had passed, the days before that, and 
the days before them. Christmas Eve ! In an hour all 
the bells in England will be ringing in the day ; and, in 
one home at least, the little ones — an infrequent treat 
— will be sitting with firelit e3'es and cheeks beside the 
fender, watching the chestnuts roast and the clock creep 
round to twelve. Yes ; at home the children are sitting 
up, I know, to see Christmas Day in ; and waiting, they 
grow tired. The moment arrives, the hand is at the 
hour, a chestnut is absorbing all attention ; when on a 
sudden, with a clash from all the steeples, the mad bells 
fling out their music on the wikl night. The great chest- 
nut question is postponed, and, starting from the hearth- 
rug, the little voices chime together, " A merr3^ Christ- 
mas ; " and then, with clamorous salutations, the kisses 
are exchanged, and, eager in conversation, the little ones 
climb upstairs to their cosy beds, the bells still clashing 
out on the keen winter air. And the old folks sit be- 
low, and, while the shivering Waits in the street are 
whining out their hideous thanksgiving, give one more 
thought to the 3'ear that is gone. And the last thought 
is always a sad one. For after all, on this planet of 
ours, Life, with its periods of hard work and its inter- 
vals of careless leisure, is happy enough. What though 
we do come into it with our miseries ready-made, and 
only the materials for our pleasures provided? Some- 
how I had fashioned my pleasures very much to my 
liking in the year that was gone, and as I looked back 
on it, there were few days, cold, hot, or rainy, that did 
not, now that they were dead, come back to me, as I 
sat there thinking, as pleasant memories. 

Christmas Eve ! no bells, no beef, no holly, no mistle= 



- The Cold Weather. 93 

toe nearer than the Himalayas ! Christmas Eve without 
a dance, witliout a single "merry Christmas" wish! 
Christmas Eve and no chilblains, no miserable Waits, 
no Christmas boxes or Christmas bills ! well, well, — 
the past is the past, a bitter sweet at best ; let it pass. 
Our Christmas Eve in India is a strange affair. Instead 
of church-bells we have jackals, and instead of holly- 
berries the weird moon-convolvulus. Look at the ghostly 
creeper there, holding out its great dead-white moons of 
blossom to beautify the owl's day. The natives in the 
south of India have a legend, — the Legend of the Moon- 
flower. There was once, they say, a maiden, exceed- 
ingly beautiful, and modest as she was beautiful. To 
her the admiration of men was a sorrow from mornino- 
to night, and her life was made wear}' with the impor- 
tunities of her lovers. From her parents she could get 
no help, for they only said, "Choose one of them for 
3'our husband, and you will be left alone by the others." 
From her friends she got less, for the men called her 
heartless, and the woman said her C03'ness would be 
abandoned before a suitor wealthier than her village 
wooers. But how could they know that one evening, 
soft and cool, as the maiden sat at her father's porch, 
and there were no ej^es near but the little owls' on the 
roof and the fireflies' under the tamarinds, there had 
come out from the guava-trees a stranger youth who 
had wooed her and won her, and who, with a kiss on 
her fair, upturned face, had sealed the covenant of their 
love? But she knew it ; and sitting, when the evenings 
were soft and cool, at her father's porch, she waited for 
the stranger's return. But he never came back; and 
her life, sorely vexed by her lovers, became a burden 
to her, and she prayed for help to the gods. And they. 



94 The Indian Seasons. 

in their pity for her, turned her into the great white 
moon-plant, which, dinging to her father's porch, still 
waits in the evenings with upturned face for the truant's 
kiss. For myself, I think they look like saucers. At 
all events, they are not, according to English tastes, the 
fit blossom of Christmas time. But then English tastes 
are not fit for Christmas time in India. The season of 
frost and ice and snow suggests to us fires, furs, and 
mulled port-wine ; reminds us of skating on ice-covered 
ponds and dancing in holly-bright rooms. The Christ- 
mas bills are a skeleton to some ; but even with the 
butcher, the baker, and the grocer dancing a cannibalic 
war-dance at the area-gate, there is hardly a home where 
Christmas is not " merry," and Hans Andersen's sexton, 
who struck the boy for laughing on Christmas Eve, is con- 
sidered a prodigy of infamy. But "the cold weather," 
as we in India are pleased to call the months at the end 
and beginning of the 3'ear, does not suggest mirthfulness 
to our Aryan brother ; it shrivels him up. Months ago, 
when the sun was killing the northern blood within us, 
the lizards lay happily basking on the hot stones, the 
copper}' danais flitted at ease about the shrubs, above 
which the air of mid-day stood shimmering and tremu- 
lous with heat, and our Aryan brothers, stretched in the 
shade of tree and wall, were content with God's earth. 
But now that the crisp morning air lends vigor to Eng- 
lish limbs, making home intolerable and a wild out-door 
life a necessity, the lizard has shrunk into a crack of 
the wall, the danais is hj^bernating, and our Arj'-an 
brother creeps about his daily avocations with the de- 
siccated appearance of a frozen frog, or sits in dormouse 
torpidity with his knees about his ears. The revenge 
of the Briton is delicious to him, and in the cold weather 



The Cold Weather. 95 



he triumphs over the Arj^an brother who in May and 
June was rustling comfortably in gauze and muslin. 
The morning ride or walk when the air is keen is to 
him {pace Charles Lamb !) as a passage of the Red Sea, 
every native an Egyptian ; and he laughs, like King Olaf 
at the thin beggar, to see the wretched Hindoo, robbing 
his spare legs to protect his head, pass by silent with 
the misery of cold. At night he finds them curled into 
inconceivable spaces under their blankets, — and such 
blankets ! a network of rough strings with hairs stretch- 
ing across the interstices, the very ghosts of blankets, 
at which Witney would hold its woolly sides with laugh- 
ter. And with man3^-folded cloths round his benumbed 
head, over all the blanket, the Hindoo walks deaf under 
your horse's nose, stands before j-our buggy-wheels like 
a frostbitten paddy-bird. The Tamils call the paddy- 
bird the "blind idiot." On a December morning the 
pompous chuprassie has no more self-respect than a 
sparrow or a hill sheep, ^ and a child may play with a 
constable as men handle a hj^bernating cobra. The fat 
bum^as are no more seen lolling beneath their shamee- 
anas ; the Hindoo, in short, is " occultated." 

In the shop yonder, where earthen vessels are sold, — 
a shilling would buy the whole stock-in-trade, — with 
the walls festooned with chalky-surfaced chiliums, the 
floor piled high with clay pots, sits the owner, frozen and 
voluminously swathed. He is not proud of his shop ; 
there is none of the assumption of the thriving merchant 

1 A flock of hill sheep will meet at a corner of the zigzag path 
a burdened pony, and the leader of them will turn aside. Soon 
the woolly tribe are in headlong flight down the steep hillside, and 
the tattoo, astonished at his own importance, passes on in sole 
possession of the scanty way. 



96 The Indian Seasons. 

about him. He is too cold to concern himself about 
his wares, for when his neighbors want pots they will, 
he knows, come to him ; if they do not want pots, ad- 
vertisements and invitations are thrown away. Shout- 
ing is a mere waste of carbon. So he spends his 
mornings perched on the edge of his threshold, pol- 
ishing his chattering teeth with a stick, and rinsing his 
mouth from the brass lotah beside him. In the next 
house there are no wares to sell, but in the centre, on a 
rag of carpet, sits a puffy man, painting, with much fa- 
cial contortion, and frequent applications of his numbed 
fingers to the charcoal burning near him, the face of a 
mud monkey-god. By his side are ranged rows of 
similar monkey-gods awaiting their turn of the brush 
that shall tip their heads with scarlet and their tails 
with yellow. Before the door sits a careful mother, 
scouring her daughter's head with mud. Here two 
shivering baboos, shin}' with patent leather as to their 
feet, with oil as to their heads, and with many folds of 
a gaudy comforter about their necks, are climbing cau- 
tiously into an ekka, a pariah dog half awake watching 
the operation with a dubious wagging of its tail. One 
and all are extinguished, suppressed, occultated, by the 
cold. 

Christmas Day ! Can this be really Yule-tide ? 

" December came with mirth men needs must make 
E'en for the empty days' and leisure's sake." 

So opens the Prologue of a modern poet's story of how, 
in those olden days when dolphins knew good music 
when the}^ heard it, and love it was that made the world 
go round, — the Strong Man came down to the Tyrian 
merchant-vessel swinging in Mycenae Bay, and, taking 



The Cold Weather. 97 

the helm himself when the great east wind began to 
blow its fiercest, steered straight for the island where 
the daughters of old Hesperus the Wise guarded the tree 
with the golden fruit. It is a December poem, and yet 
the scene of it is laid in a land where the boughs were 
blossomed and ' ' unknown flowers bent down before 
their feet ; " where there were the lilies of spring in 
the grass, the fruit of autumn on the trees, and, over 
all, the warm light of a summer sun. Well for the 
poet that his song was of olden times ! The reader is 
content in his December tale to take him at his word, 
to see wade off from the shingle the man 

" Who had a Uon's skin cast over him, 
So wrought with gold that the fell show'd but dim 
Betwixt the threads." 

And afterwards to see him at the foot of the golden- 
fruited tree, in the land of roses and singing-birds, 
standing where 

" Three damsels stood naked, from head to feet. 
Save for the glory of their hair." 

We see him pick the red-gleaming apples, note the 
branch spring back, and then watch him, with the 
round fruit in his hand, go down across the lawn, 
dappled with flowers and fallen fruit, to the Tyrian ship 
again. 

" His name is Hercules, 
And e'en ye Asian folk have heard of him." 

We " Asian folk" have indeed heard of a land where, 
by some pantomime of nature, roses are winter flowers 
and fruit ripen in December, where there are singing- 
birds instead of old cock-robins and turkeys, and where 

7 



98 The Indian Seasons. 

the damsels of the land, instead of nestling in chinchilla 
or sable's fur, stand about in a rural manner, much as did 
the Hesperids. We know too that in that land there 
was once a magic tree with golden pagoda coin for fruit, 
which strong men, coming across the sea in ships of 
trade, shook at will. But vegetables are not auriferous 
now. The Golden Pippin is a species of apple un- 
happil}'' extinct, and Sir Epicure Mammon was not far 
from the mark when he lumped Jason's Fleece, Jove's 
Shower, and the Hesperian Garden as "all abstract 
riddles of the philosopher's stone." 

But though the tree is gone, the country is much what 
it was in the Genesis of Anglo-India — the antediluvian 
period that preceded the Mutiny of 1857. It is still a 
land of juggling seasons. December comes round as 
usual, and with it Christmas Day and its marigolds ; and 
men, having no work to do, — 

" Mirth needs must make 
E'en for the empty days' and leisure's sake." 

I have spent Christmas in England, and there was 
honest merriment enough. And on the doorstep with- 
out, birds and beggars alike shared in the sudden flow 
of Christmas goodwill. 

I have also spent Christmas Da}^ in India, but not all 
the marigolds of Cathay will firk up Christmas spirits, or 
make me throw crumbs to a blue-ja}^ The blue-jay 
would not eat them in the first place, for there are 
plenty of flying things abroad for him to eat. But even 
if that unpleasant bird, with its very un-Christmas 
plumage of sunny blue, were to turn frugivorous for the 
nonce to humor me, since " Christmas comes but once 
a year," I would not feed him. I have no Yule-tide 



Tlie Cold Weather. 99 

humor about me, for there is no Christmas around me. 
The jests of nature are too long in the telling to be 
mirthful. The crops have been yellow with mustard 
blossom this week past, the gardens in all their glorj'- 
for many weeks ; and how, all of a sudden, and simply 
because it is the 25th of December, can I feel more at 
peace with all men than I did last Thursda}^ ? If Nature 
would only meet me half way, or even the robins of the 
country wear red waistcoats instead of red seats to 
their trousers, I would try and squeeze some seasonable 
festivity into my thoughts. But it is out of the question. 
Wh}^ ! there is at this moment a punkah-puller outside 
the tent talking about the affairs of the hot weather, 
and dunning my servant for four annas to which he pre- 
fers a forged claim. He was always interesting, that 
coolie. The}^ are a feeble folk, the most of them, — the 
coneys amongst mankind, — and the intelligent are in 
a desperate minority. Look around at the crowds of 
coolies whose life is a long yarn of gra}^ toil, crossed at 
intervals with tawdry threads of laz3% worthless self-in- 
dulgence. Of " remembrance fallen from heaven " they 
have none. When the high gods sat down to fashion 
them, they must — to turn the poet's words — have 
wrought with more weeping than laughter, more loath- 
ing than love. Swinburne has said that they gave them 
also life enough, perhaps, to make the bitterness of 
humanity keen to them ; and that they gave them 
light enough to illustrate the deadhness of all life's 
pleasures, and to show them the way to their graves. 
They have limbs and a shadow, and yet I doubt if 
poor Peter Schlemil would have exchanged his be- 
devilled existence for theirs. The flight of time they 
congratulate themselves upon ; and nobility of deed or 



100 The Indian Seasons. 

speech in a finer race does not affect the level of their 
minds, for they cannot even think splendidl}^ 

But this peculiar coolie of mine was an interesting 
study, for he owned a cow. How he got it I cannot 
guess, for he did not look like a person with rich rela- 
tives to remember him in a will ; and with his own 
money he could not have bought it. Nor could he 
have stolen it, for his legal ownership was ostentatiously 
displayed at all hours. Yet it was not a cow to be very 
proud of. It was not a big cow, and gave no milk. 
Nor did it drag anything about it — a cart or vehicle 
of any kind. But it was very cheerful. It played bo- 
peep with m}^ terrier between the pillars of the porch, 
and from pure light-hearteduess used to scour about the 
compound, with its tail, from an ecstas}' of mirthfulness, 
curled up into a knot on its back. It trotted about a 
good deal in the mornings ; and when its owner was not 
pulling my punkah, he was generally running about 
slowl}" and indefinitely after it. The cow always went 
much faster than the coolie, for I never saw him catch 
it except when it was standing still ; and when he came 
up with it he never seemed to know what he should do 
next. He used to pull it about in a possessive manner, 
and jerk its rope as if he wished it to move — first in the 
direction of the compound gate, and the cow would 
cheerfully trot alongside of him ; but on a sudden there 
~ would be a violent jerk, and the cow would find the 
coolie pulling in the opposite direction, whither it would, 
without demur, follow him. Whatever the change of 
programme, the cow acquiesced in it with the utmost 
heartiness ; and thus, after having blith^l}^ proceeded a 
little in each direction, it generally found itself pretty 
much where it started from. The coolie would then 



The Cold Weather. 101 

carefully tether his propert}^ to the largest weed that was 
near, the cow looking on at the elaborate process with 
a contemplative aspect ; after which, the coolie having 
turned to go, it would eat the weed up, and gaily ac- 
company its master towards the verandah. The cow 
was quite useless to the coolie, and he could not demon- 
strate his ownership by doing anything with it. So he 
would sometimes throw stones at it — just to show that 
the cow was his. It was all pride, the pride of owner- 
ship ; and though the cow cost him at least threepence 
a week, for it was regularly impounded for frolicsome 
trespass, he never parted with it. But I was obliged to 
part with the coolie ; for one day, the wind being high, — 
the Scythians said wind was the principle of life, — the 
cow was unusually livelj^, and, after a preliminary canter 
round the garden with the terrier, it proceeded, in spite 
of the gardener, to execute a fantastic but violent pas 
seul upon a croquet ground which was in course of con- 
struction. I felt, therefore, compelled to ask the coolie 
to take his cow away and not to bring it back again. 
Nor did he ; for he never came back himself — not, at 
any rate, until the punkahs had been put away in the 
lumber-room, and the tatties were gone, wherever old 
tatties go. His cow, I think, must be dead now, for he 
seems to have nothing to do but to loaf about with my 
camp, waiting for me to pay him the four annas of 
wages which he tries to prove is due to him. 

Now, what a strange thing human nature is ! Here I 
have been protesting for the last hour that I had no 
Christmas foolery left in me ; and yet I have this 
moment paid that punkah-coolie the four annas he has 
no claim to — and which, on principle, as I have told my 



102 The Indian Seasons. 

wife every day for the last month, I have refused for 
two months to pay him — just because it was Christmas 
Day I To increase the absurdity, I had to confess the 
reason to him ! For having sworn solemnl}- on all the 
rules of arithmetic that I did not owe him one farthing, 
1 was obliged to give a decent explanation for my sud- 
den acknowledgment of the debt ; and how could I, 
before my servants, better maintain my dignitj^, and at 
the same time get rid of an importunate coolie, than by 
making him a present of his extortionate demand in 
full, because it was a " Feast day with us Christians." 

For yet another Chiistmas, then, have I kept alive a 
Yule spark ! 

I look up at the poem lying open before me, and with 
a fateful response, that may compare with the unhappy 
King's Virgilii Sortes^ the book replies — 

" Cast no least thing thou lovedst once away, 
Since yet perchance thine eyes shall see the day." 

Perchance, indeed, we shall all see another Christmas 
Day " at home," and among romping children and wel- 
coming friends rekindle the smouldering Yule spark 
into an honest Eno-lish Christmas blaze. 



PAET III. 



UNNATURAL HISTORY. 



PART III. 
UNNATURAL HISTORY. 

I. 

MONKEYS AND METAPHYSICS. 

Monkeys are Metaphysics. — How they found Seeta.— Yet they 
are not Proud. — Their Sad-Facedness. — Decayed Divinities. 
— As Gods in Egypt. — From Grave to Gay. — "What do the 
Apes think of us? — The Etiquette of Scratching. — "The 
New Boy" of the Monkey-House. — They take Notes of us. ^ — 
Man- Ape Puzzles : — The Soko. — Missing Links. 

MONKEYS are metaph^^sics, and it is no idle 
work meditating among them. 
In the first place, there is an objective difficulty, 
for the monkeys themselves seem possessed by a demon 
of unrest, and are perpetually in kaleidoscopic motion. 
The individual that was here when 3' ou began to take a 
note is nowhere when you have finished. In the inter- 
val it has probably turned a dozen somersaults on as 
many different perches, taken a swing on the trapeze, 
pulled all the tails it found hanging about, and is now 
bus}' scratching a small friend up in the roof. In the 
next place, there is a subjective difficulty, for in think- 
ing about monkeys the mind cannot relax itself as it 
would in thinking about cats or parrots, nor get into 
undress over it as it might over a more trifling subject. 



106 Unnatural History. 

A monkey suggests something more than matter. There 
is a suspicion of mind about the creature that prevents 
one thinking idly, and all its problems seem somehow or 
another to resolve themselves into human questions of 
psychology or ethics. Many of their actions require a 
rational explanation, and, though each one may be turned 
off with a laugh, the gravit}^ of the monkey will tell in 
the long-run, and the looker-on will find himself at last 
speculating as to whether and if, and hesitating as to 
the neuter genders of pronouns being proper to be used 
when speaking of monke3's. Fortunately^ for us the mon- 
key is not proud. He has no reserve whatever, and 
betrays b3' his candor much that, if he were more reti- 
cent, would puzzle human beings bej'ond endurance. 
But the monkey makes us free of the whole of him, and 
conceals nothing. Yet, in spite of all this, the monkey 
remains a conundrum to human beings ; and the more 
one thinks about him the less one feels sure of under- 
standing. 

If pedigree and lofty traditions could make any 
creatures proud, surely the monke3's should be proud, 
for their history runs back without a fault to the heroic 
times when their ancestors, living in the very hills which 
the monkey-folk still haunt, were the allies of the gods, 
and their chiefs were actually gods themselves. 

The story goes — it is one of the oldest stories ever told 
— that when Seeta, the lady of the lotus ej'es, the wife 
of Rama, had been carried away to Cejion by Ravana, 
the black Raja of the Demons, her husband went out 
from the jungles of Dandaka to ask help of the Vulture 
King. This was Jatayus, the son of that Garuda 
the quills of whose feathers were like palm-tree trunks, 
and the shadow of his fl^^ing overhead like the passing 



Monkeys and Metaphysics. 107 

of a thunder-cloud in the month of the rains. But the 
Demons had alread}^ killed the princel}^ bird because 
Jatayus had tried to stop them from carrying Seeta away ; 
so Eama, having lit the funeral pyre for his friend, went 
ofl farther, to ask the help of one who was even more 
powerful than the Vulture King. This was Hanuman, 
the son of Vargu, the chief of all the monkey nations, 
who held his court upon the mountain peaks by the 
Pampas Lake. And the sentinel apes, sitting on the 
topmost rocks, saw Rama approaching, and recognized 
him, and Hanuman himself came down towards him 
reverentty , stepping from ridge to ridge, and led the hero 
up to the council-peaks, and called all the princes of the 
four-handed folk together to give him their advice. 
Hanuman himself sat apart upon a peak alone, for there 
was not room enough on one mountain top for both him 
and the rest, for to the council had come all the greatest 
monkey warriors. Varana, the whi|;e ape, was there, 
resting at full length upon a ridge, and looking like a 
snow-drift that rests upon the Himalayas ; and there too 
was Arundha of the portentous tail, with the strength 
of a whole herd of elephants in each of his hairy arms ; 
and there too Darviudha, that matchless baboon. And 
after long council it was decided that the monkey nation 
should be divided into four armies, and that each army 
should search a quarter of the universe. The southern 
quarter fell to Hanuman, and he linked his warriors 
together in long lines and they searched the whole south 
before them, examining the ravines among the mountains 
and the creeks along the seashores as narrowly as the 
ants search the crevices of the bark in the neem-trees ; 
but night came on and they had not found Seeta. So 
she must be beyond the Black Water, the monkeys said. 



108 Unnatural History, 

as they stood at the end of the land, looking about them 
across the sea for other countries. And when the da}^ 
broke they saw a cloud Ij'ing upon the sea, and told 
Hanuman, but as soon as he saw it the sagacious son of 
Vargu said, " It is an island," and, stepping back a few 
paces, he ran and jumped, right away from India and 
across the straits into the Island of Ceylon. There he 
found Seeta shut up in a garden, and went back and told 
Rama. And then the old story goes on to say how Nala, 
the monkej^-wizard, made stones float upon the sea for a 
bridge ; and how Jambuvat, the king of the shaggy bears, 
led his people down from the hills to help the monkeys ; 
and how the whole host crossed over to Ceylon and 
fought for many days with the Demons, and were 
alwa3^s beaten till Sushena, the wisest of all the apes, sent 
Hanuman back to the Himalaj^as for the m3'Stical Herb 
of Life, and with it called back all the souls of the dead 
monkey warriors ; and how even then they could not 
conquer Indrajit, the mighty son of Ravana. At last the 
gods took part with Rama against the Demons. Vishnu 
lent him his chariot and Brahma gave him his quiver, 
and then, after a terrible fight, the steed of Indrajit went 
back riderless into the citj^ and Ravana, seeing his son 
was dead, came out himself to lead his hosts, bursting 
from the city gates as fire bursts from the peaks of the 
islands in the Eastern Sea, and slew one by one all the 
monkey chiefs, and last of them all slew Hanuman him- 
self. Then Rama, the husband of Seeta, stood up in 
his chariot before Ravana, and would neither die nor 
move, and the Demon King at last grew faint with fight- 
ing, and turned towards the cit^", but the monkeys had 
set it on fire ; and when he saw the smoke ascending, 
Ravana turned again in his despair, and sent his chariot 



and Metaphysics. 109 



forward with the crash of a thunderbolt against Rama* 
But Rama was immovable, and, standing upright among 
the dead, he loosed a great bolt, and Ravana's soul fled 
to Yama, where it floats in the River of the Dead. 
Then the monkeys destroyed the cit}^ of the Demons, 
and escorted Rama back to India ; and Sushena, the 
magician ape, made the stone bridge sink again ; and 
Rama went back again with his wife to A^'odhya, and the 
monkey people back to their merrj^ hills by the Pampas 
Lake. 

This is surely a splendid episode in the history of 
a people ; and the monkeys of to-day are the lineal de- 
scendants of those very monkej's that fought for Rama. 
There is no gap in the long descent, and to-day the 
inheritors of Hanuman's fame inherit also his sanctity, 
sharing in the East the abodes and property of men, and 
possessing besides manj^ temples of their own. 

Yet the monkeys are not proud. They will con- 
descend quite cheerfully to eat the Hindoo's humble 
stores of grain and fruit put out for sale on the village 
stall ; and when these fail, in consequence perhaps of the 
grain-dealer's miserh' interference, they will fall to with 
an appetite upon the wild berries and green shoots of 
the jungle, or even pick a light luncheon off an ant-hill. 
No, there is no pride about them, but much gravity and 
sadness ot face, induced, perhaps, hy the recollection of 
their classical glories and a consciousness of the present 
decadence of their race. 

The ape in ^sop wept copiously on passing through 
a cemetery. "What ails you, my friend?" asked the 
fox, affected b}- this display of grief. "Oh, nothing," 
was the reply of the sensitive creature, " but I alwa^'S 
weep like this when I am reminded of my poor dead 
ancestors ! " 



110 Unnatural History. 

Such susceptibility to grief is lionorable, but in the 
monke3^s, b}^ constant indulgence, it has stereotyped a 
tearful expression of countenance, which even when at 
play is never altogether lost. Take them, for instance, 
when, in fun, they have tied themselves into a knot, and 
pretend that they cannot undo themselves. But look 
at the faces that peep out of the bundle of tails and 
paws ! They might belong to orphans of an hour's 
-standing, so wistful and disconsolate are their eyes. 
Another one, peeling an orange, gazes on it with a look 
of such immeasurable grief as the Douglas's features 
might have showed when holding the Bruce's heart in 
his hand ; and next to him sits an ape, sorrowfully 
cuffing a youngster ; while overhead, surveying all the 
heedless throng, sits an old baboon, with a profound 
expression of melancholy pity on his reverend counte- 
nance, that recalls to my mind a Sunday picture-book of 
my earl}^ 3'outh, and, as depicted therein, the aspect of 
Moses, w^hen, from a mountain top, he sadl}^ over- 
looked the Hebrews dancing round the golden calves. 

Hanuman himself, saddest of monkey's, ma}^ himself 
be here, for his species is a common one ; and so too 
others of high renown. Here, looking wofull}:^ among 
the straw for a fallen nut, sits the very god of "mad 
Egypt," the green monkey of Ethiopia, which was held 
in such reverence in old Memphis as the type of the 
God of Letters, or as Thoth himself, the emblem of the 
moon, s3^mbol of the Bacchus of the Nile, and dignify- 
ing the obelisks of Luxor and the central sanctity of a 
hundred shrines. Yonder, musing pensively over a 
paper bag, still redolent of the gingerbread it once con- 
tained, sits Pthah, the pigm}' baboon, the God of 
Learning, without whom Hermopolis would have been 



and Metaphysics. Ill 

desolate, at once the genius of life and the holder of the 
dreadful scales after death, more potent than the ibis, 
and guardian of all the approaches to hundred-gated 
Thebes. A reverend pair, truly, and sadly come down 
in the world. 

Do they know it? It is hard to say. *They inherited 
their sad faces, no doubt, from some sad-faced pro- 
genitor ; but how came he — the primitive ape — by so 
mournful a countenance ? Did some tremendous catas- 
trophe in the beginning of time overtake the four- 
handed folk, — so terrible in its ruin, that the sorrow of 
the survivors was impressed forever upon their features 
and transmitted by tliem to their kind? Everything, we 
are told, is inherited. The farmyard goats, when doing 
nothing else, still perch themselves on the highest point 
of the bank they can find, or on the wall, because their 
wild ancestors used once upon a time to stand on the hill 
peaks, 'as sentinels for the herd, to watch for the hunter 
and the eagle and the lynx. The dog still turns himself 
round before going to sleep, because in the old wolf 
da3^s his progenitors, before the}^ lay down, cautiously 
took one last look all round them. Is there, then, an}^ 
reason in the far past for the melancholy demeanor of 
the monkeys of the present? 

Perhaps the}^ stUl remember the Flood with personal 
regret. 

It is impossible to speak with disrespect of animals 
having such antecedents ; and, besides, this monkey be- 
fore you knows perhaps a secret that science cannot find 
out — the secret of the Sources of the Nile. As he 
passes by, a tail hanging down from the perch above 
him attracts his notice, and pulling it, he brings down 
upon himself a monkey smaller than itself, which had 



112 Unnatural History. 

thought itself concealed, but had forgotten its depend- 
ent tail. The tin3^ creature is to-da}^ " the new boy " 
of the school, and, as yet, has found his comrades rude 
and unsympathetic. 

The}^ ask his sisters' names, and where he came from, 
how old he is, and what he can do ; and whatever his 
answer may be, the rejoinder is much the same, either a 
pinch or a push, a tug at his tail, or a box on the ear. 
So, as the keeper says, " whenever he sees one coming 
towards him he just sits down and hollers ; but he'll get 
used to it. They all hollers a bit at first." 

But the grivet after all is onl}^ going to scratch the 
capuchin, in a sociable sort of wa}^, for they are most of 
them sociable, and a pleasing community of fur obtains 
among them. 

But 3^ou must not watch a monkey too long at a time, 
or it will be certain to abuse your curiosity by flippant 
conduct, and the illusion of respectability will be at once 
destroyed. Turn for a moment to any family of mon- 
keys, and for a time nothing can be more becoming than 
their behavior. The j'oung ones romp, while the old 
one, discountenancing such frivoUty, sits severely on a 
perch, turning every now and then to look out wistfully 
over the spectators' heads at the bright sun shining out of 
doors. But on a sudden a change comes over the scene. 
A 3"oung one, grovelling under the straw, forgets that it 
has left its tail protruding, and the temptation is greater 
than the old one can resist. In a twinkling the challenge 
to a romp is accepted ; and lo ! while the senior makes 
a fool of himself among the straw with one of the 
children, the other child is on his perch, looking just as 
grave as he did, and gazing at intervals in the same 
wistful way out into the open air. The old monkey, 



Monkeys and Metaphysics. 113 



lately so solemn, so respectable, so care-worn, has sud- 
denly resolved itself into an irresponsible fool, commit- 
ting itself to every possible absurdity, and subjected to 
the irreverent liberties of its juniors. Those who do 
not respect themselves cannot, of course, look for re- 
spect from others ; but, from the elder monkey's attitude 
when we first approached it, such a complete abandon- 
ment to buflbonery was hardly to be expected. 

Or, take again some austere-looking monkey in soli- 
tary confinement. She has apparently no temptations 
to romp, for she has no comrades ; but here again the 
same deplorable disregard of appearances occurs. Her 
cage is lined with straw, and in the centre of the straw 
she sits, as composed as a mummy, and with a face 
like an old Mussulman moulvie. Surely, the crack of 
doom itself could not disturb such serene equanimity. 
The thought, however, is hardly past before the monkey, 
with a velocity that suggests an explosion from below, 
springs to the roof, carrying with her as much of the bed 
as her four hands can hold, and in the next instant is 
down again and spinning round and round on the bare 
floor in pursuit of her own tail, while the straw comes 
stragghng down upon her silly old head from the perch 
above. The creature has suddenly, to all appearance, 
become a hopeless idiot ! 

It is JQst the same in the next cage, and the next, 
and the next. Intervals of profound contemplation and 
admirable gravity alternate with fits of irrelevant frivol- 
ity ; and it is just these extraordinary alternations of 
conduct and demeanor that make monkeys metaphysics. 
There is no arguing from probabilities with them, or 
concluding from premises. It is always the unforeseen 
that occurs. 



8 



114 Unnatural History. 

Perhaps the}^ may have a lingua franca among them- 
selves, but against man they conspire together to be 
dumb ; provoking him to speculation by imitating hu- 
man manners, and then frustrating all his conclusions 
by suddenlj^ lapsing — into monke3^s. 

It is difficult enough to catch a monkey's ej^e, but to 
catch one of its ideas is impossible. Neither in look 
nor in mind will it positively confront man, but just as 
it lets its eye pass over his, 3'et never rest upon it full, 
so its ' ' mind " glances to one side or the other of the 
human intelhgence, but never coincides with it.^ It may 
be that they were once all human, that the link still 
exists, and that in time all will be human again ; but 
meanwhile it is quite certain that race after race is be- 
coming extinct, and that as yet no single individual in 
all the " wilderness of monkeys" is quite a man. 

Stanley the traveller has told us that sometimes when 
he entered an African homa^ intending to take notes of 
the strange beings who lived in it, and their odd appear- 
ance and eccentric wa^'s, he was greatl}^ disconcerted to 
find that he himself, and not the natives, was considered 
singular in that part of the world. They, the savages, 
were ordinary, every-day folk ; but he, their discoverer, 
was a curious novelty, that deserved, in their opinion, 
to be better known than he was. So the majority turned 
the tables on the explorer ; for while they were all of one 
orthodoxy, in looks, habits, and language, the stranger 
appeared to them a ridiculous exception. He had not 
a single precedent to cite, or example to appeal to, in 

1 For an admirably sympathetic sketch of monkey character — 
and much more besides — read Miss Frances Power Cobbe's de- 
lightful book, " False Beasts and True." 



Monkeys and Metaphysics. 115 

justification of the preposterous color of his skin, the 
, ludicrous clothing he wore, or his queer waj's. In the 
middle of Africa he found himself a natural solecism, 
a " sport," as botanists saj^, from the normal type, — a 
lusus naturce^ an interesting monstrosity. 

The savages, therefore, would solemnly proceed to 
discover Stanley, and after deliberate examination pro- 
nounce him, in Brobdingnagian phrase, to be simpl}^ a 
relplum salcath — something, in fact, which they could 
not understand, but which they considered very absurd. 
Meanwhile, what with taking his clothes off and put- 
ting them on again to please his explorers, and beating 
up the various articles of property, socks and so forth, 
which different households had appropriated as curiosi- 
ties, the traveller found his time so fulty occupied that 
his notes of the other manners and customs of the na- 
tives were often of the briefest description, and he had 
to go on his way, considerabl}^ out of countenance at 
finding that, while he thought he was discovering Cen- 
tral Africa, the Central Africans were really discover- 
ing him. 

^ Something of the same feeling grows upon the ob- 
server after a morning with monkej'S. We, on the one 
hand, remark the pensive demeanor of the four-handed 
folk, and sj^mpathize with the unknown causes of their 
melanchoty, — are amused hy their irrational outbreaks 
of frivolit}^ and scandalized by their sudden relapses 
from an almost superhuman gravity and self-respect 
into monkey indecorum and candor. But while we are 
watching one of them it suddenly occurs to us that we 
ourselves are being watched by the rest, and that as we 
take notes of the monkeys so they take notes of us. 

They, no doubt, remark that our faces are usually 



116 Unnatural History. 

characterized by a senseless smile, and, full of lofty pity 
for us, wonder at creatures that can thus pass their 
days in causeless mirth, and differ so much in their fur 
and feathers that it is nothing short of a marvel that 
they ever distinguish each other's species. While we, 
the spectators, are moralizing over the divine honors of 
the ape in the Past, and his fallen state, the ape of the 
Present sits puzzling over the man of the Future. Some 
of the types which he sees round his cage are so like 
his own that he seems to make an involuntary gesture 
of recognition, but his relative has gone by before he 
has been able to explain himself; so he retires again 
into contemplation, regretting his lost opportunity, but 
content to wait patiently till, as he says, " some more 
of my sort happen to come round." 

While we outside are noting the unformed heel, the 
leg without a calf, the lines of the skeleton that prevent 
an erect attitude, the}- within have observed that human 
beings cannot run up the wire netting, or swing by their 
tails on the railings ; that they have no flea-hunting to 
relieve the tedium of life, and that when a child wishes 
to look over any obstacle its parents have to hold it 
aloft to do so, as the poor little thing cannot scamper 
up a pole. While we are commiserating the monkej's 
on their narrow escape from human intelligence, the 
monke3^s are wondering how long it will be before men 
grow wise enough to use their tails instead of hiding 
them, and see the folly of keeping two of their hands in 
boots. 

We surmise enough about their antecedents to feel 
misgivings as to relationship, but do 3'ou really suppose 
that these creatures with the thoughtful eyes think 
nothing? The^^ look at 3'ou quite as keenly as you at 



Monkeys and Metaphysics. 117 

them, whenever 3'ou happen to turn your head aside ; 
and if 3'ou suddenly surprise them in their scrutiny they 
shift their glance at once with affected indifference but 
extraordinary rapidit}', and subside into a studied 
carelessness, — the perfection of acting, it is true,' but 
nevertheless so palpably assumed that it fills you with un- 
canny suspicions. Again and again the experiment may 
be tried, and every time with the same result — the swift 
withdrawal of that furtive searching gaze, and the utter 
collapse into vacuous but sinister complacency. By 
perseverance you can pursue the monkey, so it seems, 
through a regular series of human thoughts, stare it 
out of countenance, make it ashamed of its stealthy 
scrutiny, and feel uncomfortable and conscious ; you 
can even make it get up and go awa}', further and 
further and further, drive it from one untenable subter- 
fuge to another, till at last it loses its temper at your 
relentless pursuit of its inner thoughts, and, jumping on 
to a perch, tries to shake the cage about your ears, 
chattering furiously and showing all its teeth. Does 
such a creature as this never retaliate in its medita- 
tions upon men and women, or find amusement in our 
proceedings ? 

In time the smaller one is soothed, and lies down so 
flat that it looks at last like a monkey-skin stretched 
out on the straw, while the larger, with an elaborate 
affectation of studious interest, searches each tuft of 
fur. 

This possession of each other is, by the way, a cur- 
ious feature of monkey life, for they seem to hold their 
fur in common. No one individual may take himself 
off to the top of the cage, and say, " You shan't scratch 
me," for his skin belongs to all his neighbors alike, and 



118 Unnatural History. 

if a larger monkej^ than himself expresses a wish to 
scratch him, the smaller must at once turn over on his 
back and submit to the process. Nor is it etiquette to 
refuse one's self to be scratched by another of equal size ; 
and Indeed, without derogation of dignity, a larger may 
abandon the surface of his stomach to a smaller. At 
times, it is true, scratching degenerates into sycophancy, 
for several tiny moakej's may be seen tickling one large, 
lazy ape-personage. They hold up his arms for him 
while the}' tickle his ribs, and watch obsequiously the 
motions of his head, as the luxurious magnate turns 
first one cheek and then the other to be attended to. 
But this is a mere accident in habits, and does not 
affect that singular commonwealth of fur which seems to 
obtain among the monkej'-folk, and which prevents any 
single member of it selfishly retiring into solitude with 
his own fleas. 

Have the monkeys, again, nothing to say about the 
man-ape problems that have puzzled humanity from the 
first? 

Beginning with the dog-faced men of Tartary and 
Libya, whom Herodotus and Plin}' handed down to 
Marco Polo and to Mandeville, or " the men of the Hen 
Yeung kingdom," — those Chinese p3'gm3- -men who had 
short tails and always walked arm in arm, lest the birds 
should think they were insects, — and ending, at pres- 
ent, with the Soko of the Uregga forests, and the Susu- 
mete of Honduras, the list of man-apes is both long and 
varied. For want of absolute contradiction or confir- 
mation we human beings have to hold our decision in 
abeyance, but why should the monkeys have an}^ doubt 
about the connecting link ? 



Monkeys and Metaphysics. 119 

What a work might be written, both horrible and gro- 
tesque, about all the ape-men or man-apes that have 
been introduced by travellers to the notice of the world ! 
Science, it is true, ignores them all, but Fanc3% I think, 
gets along better without Science. Classification and 
microscopic investigation are no doubt excellent things 
in their wa}', but they interfere very awkwardl}^ with the 
hearty conception of a good- all-round monster ; and, as 
a matter of fact, if travellers had been mere hair-split- 
ting, " finicking" professors, we should never have had 
that substantial Fauna of Mystery which we now possess. 
Fortunately, however, they have, as a rule, been cour- 
ageous, open-hand.ed fellows, who would as soon think 
of sticking at an extra horn or hoof, or shirking a mane 
or a tail, as of deserting a comrade in danger. 

The result of their generous labors has been the col- 
lection of as wholesome a set of monsters as could have 
been wished ; gravitating, moreover, as it is right they 
should, towards mankind, until, indeed, they actually 
merge in humanity. Professor Owen, who wages des- 
perate war, and ver}^ properly, against the existence of 
all things of which he has not seen a bit, refuses, of 
course, to admit the last gradation altogether. But 
Professor Huxley, who, I believe, is really in his heart 
of hearts pining secretl}^ for a tailed man to be found, 
laughs to scorn the dry theory of the hippocampus minor ; 
and if he were only to travel to-morrow into an unknown 
land, I am not at all sure that he would not ultimately 
emerge from some primeval forest hand in hand with 
the " missing link." In the meantime he could not do 
better than accept the Soko. For the establishment 
of the Soko's individuality there are teeth, skin, and 
skulls in existence, and the last have been declared 



120 Unnatural History. 

hy Professor Huxley to be human. Tbej were brought 
from Africa by Mr. H. M. Stanley, as being the frag- 
ments of a great ape which certain natives had eaten, 
and which they themselves called " meat of the forest." 
Nevertheless, the Professor declares that they are the 
remains of defunct humanit}^, male and female. 

After this the Soko must rank as one of the most 
interesting mysteries of Nature. Is it human or not? 
Is it the chief of monkeys or the lowest of men? Dr. 
Livingstone was not quite certain, and Mr. Stanley told 
me he was himself only half convinced.^ In reviewing 
the work of the latter explorer for a London journal I 
drew special attention to the Soko, fqr, though actually 
known only by report, the repeated references to it 
make this ape-man one of the features of the book. On 
one occasion Mr. Stanley actuall}' startled to its feet a 
great monke3'-person that was asleep on the river-bank ; 
but his boat was shooting down the stream so swiftly 
that he could not tell whether it was beast or man. 
Circumstantial evidence of the existence of a half-human 
creature, however, thrust itself upon the explorer day 
after day. In Manj^ema, in the Uregga forests, at 
Wane Kirumbu, at Mwana Ntaba, the Soko was heard 
after nightfall or during broad daylight roaring and 
chattering. At more than one place its nest was seen 
in the fork of a tall bombax ; and, both at Kampunzu 
and a village on the Ariwimi, its teeth, skin, and skulls 

1 When editing Mr. Stanley's " Through the Dark Continent," 
I heard from the explorer and read in his notes much that was not 
published. His Soko lore was considerable ; but in a few words 
his man-ape problem is this. The natives gave Stanley skulls, 
teeth, and skins of a creature they called an ape. Professor Huxley 
says the skulls are human. The teeth and skin are not. 



Monkeys and Metaphysics. 121 

were obtained from the people, who never differed in 
their description of the creature they called the Soko, 
and insisted that it was only a monkey. The skulls, at 
an}^ rate, have been proved to be human, and the teeth 
are some of them human, too ; but if the tough skin, 
thickly set with close gray hair came off the body of a 
man or a woman, he or she must have been of a species 
hitherto unknown to science. For as yet no family of 
our race has confessed to a soft gray fur, nearly an inch 
long in parts and inclining to white at the tips. Yet 
such is the skin of the Soko, the creature whose skull 
Professor Huxley says is human. 

Two fascinating theories at once suggest themselves to 
help us out of the Soko mystery ; for, premising that Mr. 
Stanley and Professor Huxley are both right, — and it is 
very difficult to see how either can be wrong, — it may 
happen that under either theor}^ the thing described by 
the tribes along the Livingstone River as " a fruit-stealing 
ape, five feet in height, and walking erect with a staff in 
its left hand, may prove to be human. The first is that 
the tribes who eat the Soko are really cannibals, and that 
they know it, but feeling that curious shame on this 
point which is common to nearlj^ all cannibals, they will 
not confess to the horrid practice, and prefer, when on 
their company manners with uneatable strangers, to pass 
off their human victims as apes. The other is that there 
actually does exist in the centre of the Dark Continent 
a race of forest men so degraded and brute-like that- 
even the cannibals living on the outskirts of their jungles 
really think them to be something less than human, and 
as such hunt them and eat them. Either theory suffices 
to suppl}' the missing link, for if it be true that the 
skulls of the Soko are human skulls — and that the Soko 



122 Unnatural History. 

skin belongs to, the Soko-skulls — then the tribes of 
the Livingstone have among them a funy-skinned race 
of men that feed by night and have no articulate speech. 
If, on the other hand, these furred creatures are so like 
monkej's that even savages cannot recognize their 
humanit}', and 3'et so like men that even Professor 
Huxley cannot recognize any trace of monkey in their 
skulls, the person called the Soko must be a very satis- 
factory missing link indeed ; for it is essential in such 
a person that he should so nearly resemble both his next 
of kin as to be exactl}^ assignable to neither. 

Man himself would, I believe, be glad, in his present 
advanced state of S3'mpathetic civilization, to admit 
the monkey's claim to alliance with himself; for it is a 
fact that our race finds a pleasure in referring loftily to 
the obscurity of its own origin, and feels a natural pride 
in having raised itself above its fortunes. 

In India, whore the monke3^s live among men, and 
are the playmates of their children, llie Hindoos have 
grown so fond of them that the four-handed folk par- 
ticipate in all their simple household rites. In the early 
morning, when the peasant goes out to 3'oke his plough, 
and the crow wakes up, and the dog stretches himself 
and shakes off the dust in which he has slept all night, 
the old monkey creeps down from the peepul-tree, only 
half awake, and 3'awns, and looks about him, puts a 
straw in his mouth, and scratches himself contem- 
plativel3\ 

Then one 133^ one the whole famil3^ come slipping down 
the tree-trunk, and the3^ all 3'awn and look about and 
scratch. But the3" are sleep3^ and peevish, and the 
3'oungsters get cuffed for nothing, and begin to think 
life dull. Yet the toilet has to be performed ; and, 



Monkeys and Metaphysics. 123 

whether they like it or not, the j^oung ones are sternly 
pulled up, one by one, to their mother to undergo the 
process. The scene, though regularl}^ repeated every 
morning, loses nothing of its delightful coraicalit}^, and 
the monkey-brats never tire of the joke of taking in 
mamma. But mamma was young herself not so very 
long ago, and treats each ludicrous affectation of suffer- 
ing with profoundest unconcern, and, as she dismisses 
one cleaned youngster with a cuff, stretches out her 
hand for the next one's tail or leg in the most business- 
like and serious manner possible. The youngsters know 
their turns quite well, and as each one sees the moment 
arriving it throws itself on its stomach, as if overwhelmed 
with apprehension, the others meanwhile stifling their 
laughter at the capital way so-and-so is doing it, and 
the instant the maternal paw is extended to grasp its 
tail the subject of the next experiment utters a dolorous 
wail, and, throwing its arms forward in the dust, allows 
itself to be dragged along, a limp and helpless carcass, 
winking all the time, no doubt, at its brothers and sisters, 
at the wa}^ it is imposing on the old lady. But the old 
lady will stand no nonsense, and turning the child right 
side up proceeds to put it to rights ; takes the kinks out 
of its tail and the knots out of its fur ; pokes her fingers 
into its ears and looks at each of its toes, the inexpres- 
sible brat all the time wearing on its face an absurd ex- 
pression of hopeless and incurable grief. Those who 
have been already cleaned look on with delight at the 
screaming farce, while those who are waiting wear a 
becoming aspect of enormous gravity. The old lady, 
however, has her joke, too, which is to cuff every 
youngster before she lets it go ; and nimble as her 
offspring are, she generally, to her credit be it said, 



124 Unnatural History. x 

manages to give each of them a box on the ears before 
it is out of reach. The father, meanwhile, sits gravely 
with his back to all these domestic matters, waiting for 
breakfast. 

Presently the mats before the hut-doors are pushed 
down, and women with brass vessels in their hands 
come out ; and, while they scour the pots and pans with 
dust, exchange between 3'awns the compliments of the 
rriorning. 

The monkeys b\' this time have come closer to the 
preparations for food, and sit solemnly, household by 
household, watching every movement. Hindoos do not 
hurry themselves in anything they do, but the monke}^ 
has lots of time to spare and plenty of patience, and in 
the end, after the crow has stolen a little, and the dog 
has had its morsel, and the children are all satisfied, 
the poor fragments of the meal are thrown out on the 
ground for the bJmnder-logue, the monkej'-people ; and 
it is soon discussed — the mother feeding the baby be- 
fore she eats herself. When every house has thus, in 
turn, been visited, and no chance of further " out-door 
relief " remains, the monkej^s go off to the well. The 
women are all here again, drawing the water for the 
day, and the monkeys' sit and wait, the old ones in 
the front, sententious and serious, and the youngsters 
rolling about in the dust behind them, till at last some 
girl sees the creatures waiting, and "in the name of 
Ram" spills a lotah full of water in a hollow of the 
ground, and the monkeys come round it in a circle and 
stoop down and drink, with their tails all curled up over 
their backs like notes of interrogation. There is no 
contention or josthng. A forward child gets a box on 
the ear, perhaps, but each one, as it has satisfied its 



I 



Monkeys and Metaphysics. 125 

thirst, steps quietly out of the circle and wipes its 
mouth. The day thus fairly commenced, they go off to 
see what luck may bring them. 

The grain-dealer's shop tempts them to loiter, but the 
experience of previous attempts makes theft hopeless ; 
for the bunnya, with all his years, is very nimble on his 
legs, and an astonishing good shot with a pipkin. So 
the monkeys merely make their salaams to him and 
pass on to the fields. If the corn is ripe they can soon 
eat enough for the day ; but, if not, they go wandering 
about picking up morsels, here an insect and there a 
berry, till the sun gets too hot, and then they creep up 
into the dark shade of the mango tops and snooze 
through the afternoon. In the evening they are back 
in the village again to share in its comforts and enter- 
tainments. 

They assist at the convocation of the elders and the 
romps of the children, looking on when the faquir comes 
up to collect his little dues of salt and corn and oil, and 
from him in their turn exacting a pious toll. They lis- 
ten gravety to the village musician till they get sleepy, 
and then, one by one, they clamber up into the peepul. 

And the men sitting round the fire with their pipes 
can see, if they look up, the whole colony of the bhunder- 
logue asleep in rows in the tree above them. 

But outside of Asia the monkey has never become a 
friend, even though we have adopted him as a relative. 
Literature has nothing to his credit, and Art ignores 
him. In olden times they never took augury from a 
monkey, and nowadaj^s no one even takes it for armor- 
ial bearings. 

Yet the tailed ones are already considerably advanced 



126 Unnatural History. 

towards civilization. As Darwin tells us, they catch 
colds and die of consumption, suffer from apoplexy and 
from cholera, inflammation, cataracts, and so forth, can 
pass on a contagious affection to men, or take the sick- 
ness from them, eat and drink all that human beings 
do, and suffer from surfeits precisely as men and women 
do ; for if drunk over-night the}' have headaches next 
morning, scorn solid food, and are exasperated by the 
mere smell of strong liquors, but turn with relish to the 
juice of lemons and effervescing draughts. 



Hunting of the Solw. 127 



II. 

HUNTING OF THE SOKO. 

LYING on my back one terribly hot day under the 
great tamarind that shades the temple of Sara- 
van, in Borneo, I began to think naturally of iced 
drinks, and fi"om them my mind wandered to icebergs, 
and from icebergs to Polar bears. 

Polar bears ! At the recollection of these animals I 
sat bolt upright, for though I had shot over nearly all 
the world, and accumulated a perfect museum of tro- 
phies, I had never till this moment thought of Green- 
land, nor of Polar bears ! Before this I had begun to 
think I had exhausted Nature. From the false elk of 
Ceylon to the true one of Canada, the rhinoceros of 
Assam to the coj'ote of Patagonia, the panther of Cen- 
tral India to the jaguars of the Amazon, I had seen 
everything in its own home, and shot it there. And 
for birds, I had hunted a so-called moa at Little Farm 
in New Zealand, the bustard in the Mahratta country, 
dropped geese into nearlj^ every river of America, 
Europe, and Asia, and flushed almost all the glorious 
tribe of game birds, from the capercailzie of Norway to 
the quail of Sicily. My museum, however, wanted yet 
another skin — the Polar bear ! I cannot sa}^ the pros- 
pect pleased me. I would much rather have sent my 
compliments to the Polar bear and asked it to come 
comfortably into some warm climate to be shot ; but re- 



128 Unnatural History. 

gretting was useless, so I gave 'the order of the clay — 
the North Pole. 

In London, however, I heard of Stanley's successful 
search for Livingstone, and then it was that the sense 
of my utter nothingness came over me. All Africa 
was unshot ! It is true I had once gone from Bombay 
to Zanzibar, Dr. Kirke helping me on my way, and, 
thanks to Mackinnon's agents (who were busy pro- 
specting a road into the interior) had bagged my hip- 
popotamus, and enjoyed many a pleasant stalk after 
the fine antelope of the Bagomoyo plains. But the 
Dark Continent itself, with its cloud-like herds of harte- 
best and springbok, its droves of wind-footed gnu, its 
zebras, ostriches and lions, was still a virgin ground for 
me. But more than all these — more than ostrich, gnu, 
or zebra, more than hippopotamus or lion — was that 
myster}^ of the primeval forest, the Soko. What was 
the Soko? Certainlj' not the gorilla, nor the chimpan- 
zee, nor 3'et the ourang-outaug. Was it a new beast 
altogether, this man-like thing, that shakes the forest at 
the sources of the Congo with its awful voice — that 
desolates the villages of the jungle tribes of Uregga, 
carries off the women captive, and meets their cannibal 
lords in fair fight? With Soko on the brain it may 
be easily imagined that the Polar bear was forgotten, 
and I lost no time in altering my arrangements to suit 
my altered plans. My snow-shoes were countermanded 
and solar helmets laid in : fur gloves and socks were 
exchanged for leather gaiters and canvas suits. 

In a month I was read}^, and in another two months 
had started from Zanzibar with a following of eighteen 
men. During my vo3^age^I had carefully read the 
travels of Grant, Speke, Burton, Livingstone, Came- 



Hunting of the Soho. 129 

ron, Schweinfurth, and Stanle}', and in all had been 
struck by the losses suffered from fatigue on the march. 
With large expeditions it was of course necessary for 
most to go on foot, but with my pj'gmj^ cortege I could 
afford to let them ride. Good strong donkeys were 
cheap at Zanzibar, and I bought a baker's dozen of 
them, reserving three of the best for myself, and allot- 
ting ten among my men, to relieve them either of their 
burdens or the fatigue of walking, according to any fair 
arrangements — fair to the donkeys and to themselves 
— they chose to make among themselves. The result 
was no sickness, little fatigue, and constant good 
spirits. M}^ goods consisted of m}^ own personal effects, 
all on one donkey; my medicine-chest, etc., on an- 
other ; fifteen men-loads of beads, wire, and cloth, for 
making friends with the natives and purchasing pro- 
visions ; and three loads of ammunition. I was lucky in 
the time of my start, for Mirambo, " the terror of 
Africa," who had been scouring the centre of the con- 
thient for the past 3"ear, had just concluded peace with 
the Arabs, his enemies, and had moreover ordered every 
one also to keep the peace. The result to me was that 
each village was as harmless as the next. 

Gaily enough, then, we strolled along, enjo3dng occa- 
sionall}^ excellent sport, and wondering as we went 
where all the horrors and perils of African travel had 
gone. We had, it is true, our experience of them 
afterwards ; but the ground has now become so stale, 
that I will pass over the interval of our journe}" from 
Zanzibar to Ujiji and thence to the river, and ask 3'ou to 
imagine us setting out for the forests that lie about the 
sources of the Livingstone in the district of Uregga, the 
Soko's home. 

9 



130 Unnatural History. 

Nearly every traveller before me had spoken of the 
Soko, the man-beast of these primeval forests. Living- 
stone had a large store of legends and anecdotes about 
them, their intelligent cruelty and their fierce, though 
frugivorous, habits. Stanley constantly heard them. In 
on6 place he saw a Soko's platform in a tree, and in 
several villages found the skin, the teeth, and the skulls 
in possession of the people. 

Wherever we went I was eager in my inquiries, but 
day after day shpped by, and still I neither heard the 
Soko alive nor saw any portion of one dead. But even 
without encountering the great simia, our journey in 
these nightshade forests was sufficiently eventful, for 
great panther-like creatures, verj^ pale-skinned, prowled 
about in the glimmering shades ; and from the trees we 
sometimes saw hanging pythons of tremendous girth. 
But the reptile and insect world was -chiefly in the as- 
cendant here, and it was against such small persecutors 
as puff-adders, centipedes, poisonous spiders, and ants, 
that we had to guard ourselves. Travelling, however, 
owing to the dense shade, was not the misery that we 
had found it in the sun-smitten plains of Uturu, or the 
hideous ocean of scrub-jungle that stretches from Suna 
to Mgongo-Zembo. The trees, nearly all of three or 
four species of bombax, mvule, and aldrendon, were of 
stupendous size and impossible altitude, but growing 
so close together their crowns were tightly interwoven 
overhead, and sometimes not a hundred yards in a whole 
day's march was open to the sky. Moreover, in the 
hot-house air under this canop}^ had sprung up with in- 
credible luxuriance ever}^ species of tree-fern, rattan and 
creeping palm known, I should think, to the tropics, 
and amongst themselves in a stratum, often thirty feet 



Hunting of the SoJco. 131 

below the upper roof of tree-foliage, had closely inter- 
meshed their fronds and tendrils, so that we marched 
often in an oven atmosphere, but protected alike from 
the killing sun and flooding rain by double awnings of 
impenetrable leafage. The ground itself was bare of 
vegetation, except where, here and there, monster fungi 
clustered, like a condemned invoice of umbrellas and 
parasols, round some fallen giant of the forest, or 
where, in a screen of blossom, wonderful air-plants 
filled up great spaces from tree-trunk to tree-trunk. 

At intervals we crossed rivulets of crystal water, icy 
cold, finding their way as best the}^ might from hollow 
to hollow over the centuries' laj^ers of fallen leaves, and 
along their courses grew in rich profusion masses of a 
broad-leafed sedge, that afforded the panther safe covert 
and easy couch ; and sometimes, on approaching one of 
these rills, we would see a ghostly herd of deer flit awa}^ 
through the twilight shade. And thus it happened that 
one evening I was lying on my rug half asleep, with the 
pleasant deep-sea gloom about me and a deathly still- 
ness reigning over this world of trees, and wondering 
w^hether that was or was not a monke}^ perched high 
up among the palm fronds, when out from the sedges 
by a runnel there paced before me a panther of unusual 
size. From his gait I saw that it had a victim in view, 
and turning my head was horrified to see that it was 
one of my own men, who was busy about something at 
the foot of a tree. 

I jumped up with a shout, and the panther, startled 
by the sudden sound, plunged back in three great leaps 
into the sedges from which it had emerged. All my 
men jumped to their feet, and one of them, in his terror 
at the proximity of the beast of prey, turned and fled 



132 Unnatural History. 

awa}" into the depth of the forest. I watched his re- 
treating figure as far as the e^e could follow it in that 
light, and laughing at his panic, went over to where my 
ass was tied, intending to stroll down for a shot at the 
panther. And while I was idl}' getting ready, the sound 
of excited conversation among my men attracted me, 
and I asked them what was the matter. There was a 
laugh, and then one of them, the most sensible, English- 
minded African I ever met, stepped forward. 

" We do not know, master," said he, "which of us 
it was that ran awa}' just now. We are all here.'' 

The full significance of his words did not strike me at 
first, and I laughed too. " Oh, count yourselves," I said, 
" and 3^ou will soon find out." 

" But we have counted, master," replied the man, 
" and all eighteen are here." 

His meaning began to dawn on me. I felt a queer 
feeling creep over me. 

" All here ! " I ejaculated. " Muster the men." 

And mustered they were — and to my astonishment, 
and even horror, I found the man was speaking the 
truth. Ever}'- man of my force was in his place. 

Then who was the man that had run away, when all 
the party started up from their sleep? A ghost^ I 
looked round into the deepening gloom. All my men 
were standing together, looking rather frightened. 
Around us stretched the eternal forest. A ghost ! And 
then on a sudden the thought flashed across me — I had 
seen the Soko. 

I had seen the Soko ! and seeing it had mistaken it 
for a human being ! And while I was still loading my 
cartridge-belt, Shumari, my gun-bo}^, had crept up to 
my side, with my express in one hand and heavy ele- 



Sunting of the Soko. 133 

phant rifle in the other ; but on his face there was a 
strange, concerned expression, and in the tone of his 
voice an uneasy tremor, with which something in my 
own feehngs sj'mpathized. 

" Is the master going to hunt the wild man?" asked 
the lad. 

" The Soko? Yes, I want its skin," I replied. 

" But the wild man cried out, ' Ai! ma-ma ' [' Oh ! 
mother, mother'] as it ran away, and — " 

"Here is the wild man's stick," broke in Mabruki, 
the Zanzibari ; and as he spoke he held out towards me 
a long staff, seven feet in length. All the blood in n\j 
body ran cold at the sight of it. It was a mere length 
of rattan, without ferule or knot, but at the upper end 
the bark had been torn down from joint to joint in 
parallel strips, to give the holder a firmer grip than one 
could have had on smooth cane, and just below the 
second joint the stumps of the corresponding shoots on 
two sides had been left sticking out for the hand to 
rest on. 

How can I describe the throng of hideous thoughts 
that whirled through m}^ brain on the instant that I rec- 
ognized these efforts of reason in the animal that I was 
now going to hunt to the death? But swift as were my 
thoughts, Mabruki had thought them out before me, and 
had come to a conclusion. "The mshenshi mtato [pa- 
gan ape] had stolen this stick from some village," said 
he; " see," and he pointed to the smoothed offshoots, 
" the}^ have stained them with the mvule juice." 

The instant relief I felt at this happy solution of the 
dreadful m3'ster3' was expressed by me in a shout of 
jo3^ ; so sudden and so real that, without knowing wh}", 
m}^ men shouted too, and with such a will that the 



134 Unnatural History. 

inonke3^s that had been gravely pondering over our 
preparations for the evening meal were startled out of 
their self-respect and off their perches, and plunged 
precipitate^ into a tangle of lianes. My spirits had 
returned, and with as light a heart as ever I had, I 
ambled off in the direction the Soko had taken. 

But soon the voices of the camp had died away be- 
hind me, and there had grown up between me and it 
the wall of mist that in this sunless forest region makes 
every mile as secret from the next as if you were in the 
highest ether — sureh^ the most secret of all places — 
or in the lowest sea. And over the soft, rich vegetable 
mould the ass's feet went noiseless as an owl's wing 
upon the air ; and, except for the rhythmical jingling of 
his ass's harness, Shumari's presence might never have 
been suspected. And then in this cathedral solitude — 
with cloistered tree-trunks reaching away at every point 
of view into long vistas closed in gray mist ; overhead, 
hanging like tattered tapestry, great lengths and rags of 
moss-growths, strange textures of fungus and parasite, 
hanging plumb down in endless points, all as motionless 
as possible ; without a breath of life stirring about me 

— bird, beast, or insect — the same horrid thoughts took 
possession of me again, and I began to recall the ges- 
tures of the wild thing which, when I startled the panther, 
had fled awa}' into the forest depths. 

It had stood upright amongst the upright men, and 
turning to run had stooped, but only so much as a man 
might do when running with all his speed. In the gait 
there was a one-sided swing, just as some great man-ape 

— gorilla or chimpanzee — might have when, as travel- 
lers tell us, they help themselves along on the knuckles 
of the long fore-arm, the body swaying down to the side 



Hunting of the SoJco. 135 

on which the hand touches the ground at each stride. 
In one hand was a small branch of some leafy shrub, 
for I distinctly remembered having seen it as it began 
to run. The speed must have been great, for it was 
very soon out of sight ; but there was no appearmice of 
rapidity in the movement, — like the wolf's slow-looking 
gallop, that no horse can overtake, and that soon tires 
out the fleetest hound. As it began to run it had made 
a jabbering sound, — an inarticulate expression of simple 
human fear I had thought it to be ; but now, pondering 
over it, I began to wonder that I could have mistaken 
that swiftly retreating figure for human. 

It is true that I did not want to think of it as human, 
and perhaps my wishes ma}^ have colored m}^ retro- 
spect ; at any rate, whatever the process, I found my- 
self, after a while, laughing at myself for having turned 
sick at heart when the suspicion came across me that 
perhaps the Soko of the forests of Uregga, the feast-day 
dish of the jungle tribes, might be a human being. The 
long, lolloping gait, the jabbering, should alone have 
dispelled the terror. It is true that my men heard it 
say, " Oh, ma-ma ! " as it started up to run by them. 
But in half the languages of the world, mama is a 
sjmonj-m for " mother," and it follows, therefore, that 
it is not a word at all, but simply the phonetic render- 
ing of the first bleating, babbling articulation of baby- 
hood, — an animal noise uttered as articulately by young 
sheep and young goats as by young men and women. 
The staff, too, was of the common type in these dis- 
tricts, and had been picked up, no doubt, by the Soko 
in some twilight prowling round a grain store, or per- 
haps gained in fair fight from some villager whom it 
had surprised, solitary and defenceless. And then my 



136 Unnatural History. 

thoughts ran on to all I had read or heard of the Soko, 
of its societies for mutual defence or food-suppl}^, and 
the comparative amiability of such communities, — of 
the solitar}'- outlawed Soko, the vindictive, lawless ban- 
dit of the trees, who wanders about round the habita- 
tions of men, hing in wait for the women and the 
children, robbing the granaries and orchards, and steal- 
ing, for the simple larceny's sake, household chattels, 
of the use of which it is ignorant. Shumari, a hunter 
born and bred, was full of Soko lore ; the skin, he said, 
was covered, except on the throat, hands, and feet, 
with a short, harsh hair of a dark color, and tipped in 
the older individuals with gray ; these also had long 
growths of hair on the head, their cheeks and lips. It 
had no tail. 

" Standing up," said he, "it is as tall as I am [he 
was only five feet one inch] , and its e3'es are together 
in the front of its face, so that it looks at 3'ou straight. 
It eats sitting up, and when tired leans its back against 
a tree, putting its hands behind its head. Three men 
of mj^ village came upon one asleep in this way one day, 
and so quietl}" that before it awoke two of them had 
speared it. It started up and threw back its head to 
give a loud cr}^ of pain, and then leaning its elbow 
against the tree, it bent its head down upon its arms, 
and so died, — leaning against the tree, with one arm 
supporting the head and the other pressed to its heart. 
There was a Soko village there, for they saw all their 
platforms in the trees, and the ground was heaped up 
in places with snail-shells and fruit-skins. But they did 
not see any more Sokos. . . . Another day I myself 
was out hunting with a party, and we found a dead 
Soko. I had thrown my spear at a tree-cat, and going 



Hunting of the Soho. 137 

to pick it up, saw close by a large heap of myombo 
leaves. I turned some up with my spear, and found a 
dead Soko underneath. . . . When a Soko catches a man 
it holds him, and makes faces at him, and jabbers ; 
sometimes it lets him go without doing him any harm, 
but generally it bites off all his fingers one by one, spit- 
ting them out as it bites them off, and his nose and ears 
and toes as well, and ends up by strangling him with its 
fingers or beating him to death with a branch. Women 
and children are never seen again, so I suppose the 
Sokos eat them. They have no spears or knives, and 
they do not use anything that men use, except that they 
walk with sticks, knocking down fruit with them, and 
that they drink water out of their hands. Their front 
teeth are very sharp, and at each side is one longer and 
sharper than the rest." 

And so he went on chattering to me as we ambled 
through the dim shade in a stupid pursuit of an invisi- 
ble thing. The stupidit}' of it dawned upon me at last, 
and I stopped, and without explaining the change to 
my companion, turned and rode homewards. 

The twilight shadows of the day were now deepening 
into night, and we hurried on. The fireflies began to 
flicker along the sedge-grown rills and, high up among 
the leaf coronets of the elais palm, were clustering in a 
maz}^ dance. Passing a tangle of lianes, I heard an owl 
or some night bird hoot gently from the foliage, and as 
we went along the fowl seemed to keep pace with us, 
for the ventriloquist sound was always with us, fast 
though we rode ; and first from one side and then from 
the other we heard the low-voiced complaining follow- 
ing. And the ' ' eeriness " of the company grew upon 
me. There was no sound of wings or rustling of leaves ; 



138 Unnatural History. 

but for mile after mile the low hoot, hoot, of the thing 
that was following, sounded so close at hand that I kept 
on looking round. Shumari, like all savages — the}^ 
approach animals very nearly in this — was intensely 
susceptible to the superstitious and uncanny, and long 
before the ghostliness of the persistent voice occurred 
to me, I had noticed that Shumari was keeping as close 
to me as possible. But at last, whether it was from 
constantly turning my head over my shoulder to see 
what was coming after us, or whether I was uncon- 
sciously infected by his nervousness, I got as fidgety 
as he, and, for the sake of human company, opened 
conversation. 

" What bird makes that noise? " I asked. 

Shumari did not reply, and I repeated the question. 

And then in a voice, so absurd from its assumption 
of boldness that I laughed outright, he said, — 

'' No bird, master. It is a miizimu [spirit] that is 
following us. Let us go quicker." 

Here was a position ! We had all the evening been 
hunting nothing, and now we were being hunted by 
nothing! The memory of Shumari's A^oice made me 
laugh again, and just then catching sight of the twink- 
ling camp fires in the far distance, I laughed at myself 
too. And, on a sudden, just as my laugh ceased, there 
came from the rattan brake past which we were riding 
a sound that was, and yet was not, the echo of my 
laugh. It sounded something like my laugh, but it 
was repeated twice, and the creature I rode, ass though 
it was, turned its head towards the brake. Shumari 
meanwhile had seen the camp fires, and his terror over- 
powering discipline, he gave one howl of horror and 
fled, his ass, seeing the fires too, falling into the humor 



Hunting of the SoJco. 139 



with all his will, and carrying off his rider at full speed. 
My ass wanted to follow, but I pulled him up, and to 
make further trial of the hidden jester, shouted out in 
Swahili, " Who is there ? " 

The answer was as sudden as horrifj'ing. For an in- 
stant the brake swaj^ed to and fro, and then there came 
a crashing of branches as of some great beast forcino- 
his way through them, and on a sudden, close behind 
me, burst out — the Soko ! 

Shumari had carried off my guns, and, except for the 
short knife in my belt, I was defenceless. And there 
before me in the flesh stood the creature I had gone out 
to hunt, but which for ever so many miles must have 
been hunting us. I had no leisure for moralizing or 
even for examination of the creature before me. It 
seemed about Shumari's height, but was immensely 
broad at the shoulders, and in one hand it carried a 
fragment of a bough. Had it been simply man against 
man, I would have stood mj' ground — but was it? The 
dim light prevented my noting any details, and I had 
no inclination or time to scrutinize the features of the 
thing that now approached me. I saw the white teeth 
flashing, heard a deep-chested stuttering, inarticulate 
with rage, and flinging myself from the ass, which was 
trembhng and rooted to the spot with fear, I ran as I 
had never run before in the direction of the camp. 

The Soko must have stopped to attack the ass, for 
I heard a scufl^e behind me as I started, but very soon 
the ass came tearing past me, and looking round I saw 
the Soko in pursuit. The heavy branch fortunately en- 
cumbered its progress, but it gained upon me. Close 
behind me I heard the thing jabbering and panting, and 
for an instant thought of standing at bay. I was run- 



140 Unnatural History. 

ning my hardest, but it seemed, just as in a nightmare, 
as if horror had parti}' paralyzed my limbs, and I were 
only creeping along. The horror of such pursuit was, 
I felt, culminating in sickness, and I thought I should 
swoon and fall. But just then I became aware of ap- 
proaching lights, the camp fires seemed to be running 
to me. The Soko, however, was fast overtaking me, 
and I struggled on, but it was of no use, and my feet 
tripping against the projecting root of an old mvule, I 
fell on my knees ; but, rising again, I staggered against 
the tree, drew my knife, and waited for the attack. In 
an instant the Soko was up with me, and, dropping its 
bough, reached out its arms to seize me. I lunged at it 
with my knife, but the length of its arms baffled me, for 
before the point of my knife could find its body, the 
Soko's hands had grasped my shoulders, and with such 
astonishing force that it seemed as if my arms were be- 
ing displaced in their sockets. The next moment a 
third hand seized hold of my leg below the knee, and I 
was instantly jerked on to the ground. The fall par- 
tially stunned me, and then I felt a rough-haired body 
fall heavil}^ upon me, and, groping their way to my 
throat, long fingers feeling about me. I struggled with 
the creature, but against its strength my hands were 
nerveless. The fingers had now found my throat ; I 
felt the grasp tightening, and gave myself up to death. 
But on a sudden there was a confusion of voices — a 
flashing of bright lights before my eyes, and the weight 
was all at once raised from off me. In another minute 
I had recovered my consciousness, and found that my 
men, the gallant Mabruki at their head, had charged to 
my rescue with burning brands, and arrived only just in 
time to save my life. 



Hunting of the SoJco. 141 

And the Soko ? 

As I lay there, my faithful followers round me with 
their brands still flickering, the voice of the Soko came 
to us, but from which direetion it was impossible to saj', 
soft and mj^sterious as before, the same hoot^ hoot, that 
had puzzled us on our homeward route. 

My narrow escape from a horrible though somewhat 
absurd death was celebrated by my men with extrava^ 
gant demonstrations of indignation against the Soko that 
had hunted me, and many respectful reproaches for my 
temerity. For myself, I was more eager than ever to 
capture or kill the formidable thing that had outwitted 
and outmatched me ; and so having had my arms well 
rubbed with oil, I gave the order for a general muster 
next morning for a grand Soko hunt. 

Now, close by our camp grew a great tree, from which 
hung down liane strands of every rope-thickness, and all 
round its roots had grown up a dense hedge of strong- 
spined cane. One of mj^ men, sent up the tree to cut us 
off some of these natural ropes, reported that all round 
the tree, that is, between its trunk and the cane-hedge, 
there was a clear space, so that though, looking at it 
from the outside, it seemed as if the canes grew right up 
to the tree trunk, looking at it from above, there was 
seen to be really an open pathway, so to speak, sur- 
rounding the tree, broad enough for three men to walk 
abreast. I had often heard of similar cases of vegetable 
aversions, where, from some secret cause of plant preju- 
dice, two shrubs, though growing together, exercise this 
mutual repulsion, and never actually combine in growth. 
Meanwhile, however, the phenomenon was interesting to 
me for other reasons, for I saw at once what a conve- 
nient receptacle this natural well would make for the 
baggage we had to leave behind. 



142 Unnatural History. 

Leaving our effects therefore inside this brake, which 
we did by slinging the bales one after the other over 
an overhanging bough, and so dropping them into the 
open pathway, and removing from the neighborhood 
every trace of our recent encampment, we started west- 
ward with four da3's' provisions, ready cooked, on our 
-backs. The method of march was in line, each man 
about a hundred yards from the next, and every second 
man on an ass, the riders carrjung the usual ivory horns, 
without which no travellers in the Uregga forests ever 
move from home, and the notes of which, exactly like 
the cry of the American wood-marmot, keep the party in 
line. By this means we covered a mile, and being unen- 
cumbered, marched fast, scouring the wood before us at 
the rate of four miles an hour for three hours. 

And what a wild, weird time it was, those three hours, 
marching with noiseless footfalls, looking constantl}^ right 
and left and overhead. I could see the line of shadowy 
figures advancing on either side, not a sound along the 
whole line, except when the horns carried down in re- 
sponse to one another their thin, wailing notes, or when 
some palm fruit, over-ripe, dropped rustling down through 
the canopy of foliage above us. And y^t the whole for- 
est was instinct with life. If you set yourself to listen, 
there came to your ears, all day and night, a great 
monotone of sound humming through the mist}^ shade, 
the aggregate voices of millions of insect things that 
had their being among the foliage or in the daylight 
that reigned in the outer world above those green 
clouds which made perpetual twilight for us who were 
passing underneath. Along the tree-roof streamed also 
troops of monkeys, and flocks of parrots and other 
birds ; but in their passage overhead, we could not, 



Hunting of the Soko. 143 

through the dense vault of foliage, branch, and blossom, 
hear their voices, except as merged in the one great 
sound that filled all space, too large almost to be heard 
at all. In the midst, then, of this vast murmur of con- 
fused nature, we seemed to walk in absolute silence. 
The ear had grown so accustomed to it, that a sneeze 
was heard with a start, and the occasional knocking to- 
gether of asses' hoofs made every head turn suddenly, 
and ever}^ rifle move to the shoulder. 

At the end of the three hours' marching we came to 
a river, — perhaps that which Stanley, in his "Dark 
Continent," names the Asna, — flowing northwest, with 
a width here of only one hundred j^ards, — a deep, slow 
-stream, crystal clear, flowing without a ripple or a mur- 
mur through the perpetual gloaming, between banks of 
soft, rich, black leaf-moukl. We halted, and, after a 
rapid meal, re-formed in line, and marching for two 
miles easterly up the river, made a left wheel ; and in 
the same order, and at the same pace as we had 
advanced, we continued nearly two hours rather in a 
northerly direction ; and then making a left wheel again, 
started ofl" due west, crossing the tracks of our morn- 
ing's march in our fourth mile, and reaching the Asna 
again in our tenth mile, — a total march of nearly thirt}- 
two miles, of which, of course, each man had traversed 
onlj' one half on foot. No cooking was allowed, and 
our collation was therefore soon despatched, and before 
I had lighted my pipe and curled myself up I saw that 
all the part}^ were snug under their mosquito nets. 

I had noticed, when reading travellers' books, that 
they alwaj's suffered severely from mosquitoes and other 
insects. I determined that / would not ; so, before 
leaving Zanzibar, served out to every man twenty yards 



144 Unnatural History. 

of net. These, in the da3'time, were worn round the head 
as turbans, and at night spread upon sticks, and fur- 
nished each man a protection against these Macbeths 
of the sedge and brake. The men thoroughly under- 
stood their value, and before turning in for the night, 
alwaj's carefully examined their nets for stray holes, 
which the}^ caught together with fibres. But somehow 
I could not go to sleep for a long while ; the pain in my 
arm where the Soko seized me was very great at times ; 
besides, I felt haunted ; and indeed, when I awoke and 
found it already four o'clock, it did not seem that I had 
been asleep at all. But the time for sleep was now 
over ; so, awakening the expedition, we ate a silent 
meal, and noiselessly remounting, were again on the 
war-trail. On this, the second day, we marched some 
three miles down the river, northwest, and then taking 
a half right wheel, started off northeast, passing to the 
north of our camp at about the eleventh mile. Here 
the first sign of life we had seen since we started broke 
the tedium of our ghost-like progress. 

Between myself and the next man on the line was 
running a little stream, fed probabl}' by the dews that 
here rained down upon us from the mvute-trees. These, 
more than all others, seem to condense the heated 
upper air, their leaves being thick in texture, and 
curiously cool, — for which reason the natives prefer 
them for butter and oil dishes. Along the stream, as 
usual, crowded a thick fringe of white-starred sedge. 
On a sudden there was a swaying of the herbage, and 
out bounced a splendidly spotted creature of the cat 
kind. Immediately behind him crept out his mate ; 
and there they stood : the male, his crest and all the 
hair along the spine erect with anger at our intrusion. 



Hunting of the SoTco. 145 

his tail swinging and curling with excitement; beside 
him, and half behind him, the female crouching low on 
the ground, her ears laid back along the head, and mo- 
tionless as a carved stone. My ass saw the pair, and 
instinct warning it that the beautiful beasts were danger- 
ous to it, with that want of judgment and consideration 
so characteristic of asses, it must needs bra}'. And such 
a bray ! At every hee it pumped up enough air from 
its lungs to have contented an organ, and at every haiv 
it vented a shattering blast to which all the slogans of 
all the clans were mere puling. It braj^ed its ver}^ soul 
out in the suddenness of the terror. The effect on the 
leopards was instant and complete. There was just one 
lightning flash of color, — a yellow streak across the 
space before me, and plump ! the splendid pair soused 
into a murderous tangle of creeping palms. That they 
could ever have got out of the awful trap, with its mil- 
lions of strong spines barbed like fish-hooks and as 
strong as steel, is probablj^ impossible ; but the magnifi- 
cent promptitude of the suicide, its picturesque com- 
pleteness, was undeniable. 

The ass, however, was by no means soothed by the 
meteor-like disappearance of the beasts of prey, and 
the gruesome dronings that, in spite of hard whacks, it 
indulged in for many minutes, betrayed the depth of its 
emotions and the cavernous nature of its interior organ- 
ization- The ass, like the savage, has no perception of 
the picturesque. 

After the morning meal I allowed a three hours' rest, 
and in knots of twos and threes along the line, the party 
sat down, talking in subdued tones (for silence was the 
order of the march), or comfortably snoozing. I slept 
myself as well as my aching arm would let me. The 

10 



146 Unnatural History. 

march resumed, I wheeled the hne with its front due west, 
and after another two hours' rapid advance we found our- 
selves again at the river, some seven miles farther down 
its course than the point from which we had started in 
the morning ; and after a hurried meal, I gave the order 
for home. Striking southeasterl}^, we crossed in our 
fifth mile the track of the morning, and in the thirteenth 
reached our camp. By this means it will be seen we had 
effectually triangulated a third of a circle of eleven miles 
radius from our camp — and with absolute^ no result. 
During the next two days I determined to scour, if pos- 
sible, the remaining semicircle. Meanwhile, we were at 
the point we had started from, and though it was nearly 
certain that at any rate one Soko was in the neighbor- 
hood, we had fatigued ourselves with nearly seventy 
miles of marching without finding a trace of it. 

As nothing was required from our concealed store, we 
had only to eat and go to sleep ; and so the men, after 
laughing together for a while ovei* the snug arrangements 
I had made for the safety of our goods, and pretending 
to have doubts as to this being the real site of the hidden 
property of the expedition, were soon asleep in a batch. 
I went to sleep too ; not a sound sleep, for I could not 
drive from my memory the hideous recollection of that 
evening, only two days before, when, nearly in the same 
spot I was lying in the Soko's power. And thinking 
about it, I got so restless that, under the irresistible im- 
pression that some supernatural presence was about me, 
I unpegged my mosquito net, and getting up, began to 
pace about. I wore at nights a long Cashmere dressing- 
gown, in lieu of the tighter canvas coat. I had been 
leaning against a tree ; but feeling that the moisture that 
trickled down the trank was soaking my back, I was mov- 



Hunting of the Soko. 147 

ing off, when my ears were nearly split by a shout from 
behind me — "Soko! Soko !" and the next instant I 
found myself flung violently to the ground, and strug- 
gling with — Mabruki ! The pain caused by the sudden 
fall at first made me furious at the mistake that had 
been made ; but the next instant, when the whole ab- 
surdity of the position came upon me, I roared with 
laughter. 

The savage is very quickty infected by mirth, and in a 
minute, as soon as the story got round how Mabruki had 
jumped upon the master for a Soko, the whole camp 
was in fits of laughter. Sleep was out of the question 
with my aching back and aching sides ; and so, mixing 
myself some gi'og and lighting my pipe, I made Mabruki 
shampoo my limbs with oil. While he did so he began 
to talk, — 

" Does the master ever see devils? " 

"Devils? No." 

" Mabruki does, and all the Wanyamwazi of his vil- 
lage do, for his village elders are the keepers of the charm 
against evil spirits of the whole land of Unyamwazi, 
and they often see them. I saw a devil to-night." 

" Was the devil like a Soko? " I asked, laughing. 

" Yes, master," he replied, '' like a Soko ; but I was 
always asleep, and never saw it, but whenever it came 
to me it said, ' I am here,' and then at last I got fright- 
ened and got up, and then I saw 3^ou, master, and " — 

But we were both laughing again, and Mabruki 
stopped. 

It was strange that he, too, should have felt the same 
uncanny presence that had afflicted me. But under 
Mabruki's manipulation I soon fell asleep. I awoke 
with a start. Mabruki had gone. But much the same 



148 Unnatural History. 

inexplicable, restless feeling that men say they have felt 
uuder ghostly visitations, impelled me to get up, and 
this time, lighting a pipe to prevent mistakes, I resumed 
my sauntering, and tired at last of being alone, I awoke 
my men for the start, although day was not yet break- 
ing. Half-asleep a meal was soon discussed, and in an 
hour we were again on the move. Shumari had lagged 
behind, as usual, and on his coming up I reproved him 
for being the last. 

"I am not the last," he said; " Zaidi, the Wang- 
wana, is not here yet. I saw him climbing up for a 
liane " (the men got their ropes from these useful plants) 
''just as I was coming away, and I called out to him 
that you would be angry." 

" Peace ! " said Baraka, the man next to me ; "is not 
that Zaidi the Wangwana there, riding on the ass? It 
was not he. It was that good-for-nothing Tarya. He 
is always the last to stand up and the first to sit down." 

"No doubt, then," said Shumari, "it was Tarya; 
shame on him. He is no bigger than Zaidi, and has 
hair like his. Besides, it was in the mist I saw him." 

But I had heard enough — the nervousness of the 
night still afflicted me. 

" Sound the halt ! " I cried ; " call the men together." 

In three minutes all were grouped round me — not 
one was missing ! Tarya was far ahead, riding on an 
ass, and had therefore been one of the first to start. 

"Who was the last to leave camp?" I asked, and 
by the unanimous voice it was agreed to be Shumari 
himself. 

Shumari, then, had seen the Soko ! and our store- 
house was the Soko's home ! 

The rest of the men had not heard the preceding 



Hunting of the SoJco. 149 

conversation, so, putting them in possession of the facts, 
I gave the order for returning to our camp. "We ap- 
proached. I halted the whole party, and binding up 
the asses' mouths with cloths, we tied them to a stout 
hane, and then dividing the party into two, led one 
myself round to the south side of the camp by a detour, 
leaving the other about half a mile to the north of it, 
with orders to rush towards the canebrake and sur- 
round it at a hundred yards' distance as soon as they 
heard my bugle. Passing swifth^ round, we were soon 
in our places, and then, deploying my men on either 
side so as to cover a semicircle, I sounded the bugle. 
The response came on the instant, and in a few minutes 
there was a cordon round the brake at one hundred 
3'ards radius, each man about twenty yards or so from 
the next. But all was silent as the grave. As jet 
nothing had got through our line, I felt sure ; and if 
therefore Shumari had indeed seen the Soko, the Soke 
was still within the circle of our guns. A few tufts of 
young rattan grew between the line and the brake in 
the centre of. which were our goods, and unless it was 
up above us, hidden in the impervious canopy over- 
head, where was the Soko ? A shot was fired into each 
tuft, and in breathless excitement the circle began to 
close in upon the brake. 

" Let us fire ! " cried Mabruki. 

" No, no ! " I shouted, for the bullets would perhaps 
have whistled through the lianes amongst ourselves. 
" Catch the Soko alive if 3'ou can." 

But first we had to sight tlie Soko, and this, in an 
absolutely impenetrable clump of rope-thick creepers, 
was impossible, except from above. 

Shumari, as agile as a monkey, was called, and 



150 Unnatural History. s 

ordered to climb up the tree, the branches of which had 
served us to sling our goods into the brake, and to see 
if he could esp}^ the intruder. The lad did not like the 
job ; bat with the pluck of his race obeyed, and was 
soon slung up over the bough, and creeping along it, 
OA^erhung the centre of the brake. All faces were up- 
turned towards him as he peered down within the wall 
of vegetation. For many minutes there was silence, 
and then came Shumari's voice, — 

" No, master, I cannot see the Soko." 

" Climb on to the big liane," called out Mabruki. 
The lad obe3'ed, and made his way from knot to knot 
of the swinging strand. One end of it was rooted into 
the ground at the foot of the tree inside the cane- 
brake, the other, in cable thickness, hanging down loose 
within the circle. We, watching, saw him look down, 
and on the instant heard him cry, — 

"Ai! ma-ma! the Soko, the Soko!" and while the 
lad spoke we saw the hanging creeper violently jerked, 
and then swung to and fro, as if some creature of huge 
strength had hold of the loose end of it and was trying 
to shake Shumari from his hold. 

" Help ! help, master ! " cried Shumari. " I am fall- 
ing ; " and then he lost his hold, and fell with a crash 
down into the brake, and for an instant we held our 
breath to listen — but all was quiet as death. The next 
instant, at a dozen diiferent points, axes were at work 
clearing the lianes. For a few minutes nothing was to 
be heard but the deep breathing of the straining men 
and the crashing of the branches ; and then on a sud- 
den, at the side farthest from mfi, came a shout and a 
shot, a confused rusK of frantic animal noises, and the 
sounds of a fierce struggle. 



Eiunting of the Soho. 151 

In an instant I was round the brake, and there lay 
Shumari, apparently unhurt, and the Soko — d3ing ! 

" Untie his hands," I said. This was done, and the 
wounded thing made an effort to stagger to its feet. 

A dozen arms thrust it to the ground again. " Let 
him rise," I said; "help him to rise;" and Mabruki 
helped the Soko on to its feet. 

Powers above ! If this were an ape, what else were 
half my expedition ? The wounded wood-thing passed 
its right arm round Mabruki's neck, and taking one of 
his hands, pressed it to its own heart. A deep sob 
shook its frame, and then it lifted back its head and 
looked in turn into all the faces round it, with the death- 
glaze settling fast in its eyes. I came nearer, and took 
its hand as it hung on Mabruki's shoulder. The 
muscles, gradually contracting in death, made it seem 
as if there was a gentle pressure of my palm, and then 
— the thing died. 

Life left it so suddenly that we could not believe that 
all was over. But the Soko was really dead, and close 
to where he lay I had him buried. 

" Master said he wanted the Soko's skin," said Shu- 
mari, in a weak voice, reminding me of my words of a 
few days before. 

"No, no," I said; "bury the wild man quickly. 
We shall march at once." 



152 Unnatural History. 



III. 

ELEPHANTS. 

They are Square Animals with a Leg at each Corner and a Tail 
at both Ends. — " My Lord the Elephant." — That it picks up 
Pins. — The Mammoth as a Missionary in Africa. — An Ele- 
phant Hunt with the Prince. — Elephantine Potentialities.— 
A Mad Giant. — Bigness not of Necessity a Virtue. — A Digres- 
sion on the Meekness of Giants. 

ELEPHANTS are square animals with a leg at 
each corner and a tail at both ends. This may be 
said to be the popular description of the Titan among 
mammals. 

Nor is its moral character more accurate!}^ summed 
up by the crowd. It has, mdeed, come to be a time- 
honored custom when looking at Jumbo, the elephant 
which Barnum has bought from " the Zoo" in London, 
to applaud first its sagacity, as evidenced, they say, 
in that old story of the tailor who pricked an elephant's 
trunk with his imprudent needle ; next, its docility, as 
shown (so the crowd would have us believe) by its 
carrying children about on its back ; in the third place 
the great sensitiveness of its trunk, inasmuch as it can 
pick up a pin with it ; and, finally, its great size. After 
this, nothing apparently remains but to congratulate our- 
selves, in a lofty way, upon havmg thus comprehen- 
sively traversed all the elephant's claims to respect, and 
to pass on to the next beast in the show. 



Elephants. 153 



But, as a matter of fact, nothing could well be more 
offensive, more unsympathetic, more unworthy of the 
elephant, than this stereotyped formula of admiration. 
That an elephant did once so unbecomingly demean 
himself as to squirt the contents of a puddle over a 
tailor and his shop is infinitely discreditable to the 
gigantic pachyderm ; and every comphment of sagacity 
paid to it on account of that dirty street-boy trick is an 
affront to the lordly beast which ranks to-day, in the 
Belgian expedition to Africa, as one of the noblest 
pioneers of modern commerce and the greatest of living 
missionaries, and in the Afghan war as one of tl^e most 
devoted and valued of her Majesty's servants in the 
East. 

His docility, again, is an easy cry, for was not Jumbo 
to be seen, every day of the week, carrying children up 
and down a path, and round and round a clump of 
bushes, backwards and forwards, forwards and back- 
wards, without doing the children any harm, or even 
needing the keeper's voice to tell him when a fair penny- 
worth of ride had been enjoyed? But upon such do- 
cility as this it is an insult to found respect, for surprise 
at such results argues a prior suspicion that the elephant 
would eat the children or run amuck among the visitors 
to the Zoological Gardens. Of its splendid docility 
there are abundant anecdotes, and among them are 
some which are really worthy of the sole living rep- 
resentative of tlie family of the mastodon and the 
mammoth. 

Such a one is the oklMahratta story of the standard- 
bearing elephant that by its docihty won a great victory 
for its master the Peishwa. The huge embattled beast 
was carrying on its back the royal ensign, the rallying- 



154 Unnatural History. 

point of the Poona host, and at the very commence- 
ment of the engagement the elephant's mahout, just as 
he ordered it to halt, received his death wound and fell 
off its back. The elephant, in obedience to his order, 
stood its ground. The shock of battle closed round it 
and the standard it carried, and the uproar of contend- 
ing armies filled the scene with unusual terrors. But 
the elephant never moved a 3^ard, refusing to advance 
or to retire the standard entrusted to it by so much as 
a step ; and the Mahrattas, seeing the flag still flying in 
its place, would not believe that the day was going 
against them, and rallied again and again round their 
immovable standard-bearer. Meanwhile the elephant 
stood there in the very heart of the conflict, strain- 
ing its ears all the while to catch above the din of 
battle the sound of the voice which would never speak 
again. 

And soon the wave of war passed on, leaving the 
field deserted ; and though the Mahrattas swept by in 
victorious pursuit of the now routed foe, still as a rock 
standing out from the ebbing flood was the elephant in 
its place, with the slain heaped round it, and the stan- 
dard still floating above its castled back! For three 
days and nights it remained where it had been told to 
remain, and neither bribe nor threat would move it, till 
they sent to the village on the Nerbudda, a hundred 
miles away, and fetched the mahout's little son, a round- 
eyed, lisping child ; and then at last the hero of that 
victorious day, remembering how its dead master had 
often in brief absence delegated authority to the child, 
confessed its allegiance, and with the shattered battle 
harness clanging at each stately stride, swung slowly 
along the road behind the boy. 



Elephants. 155 



Such splendid docility as this — the docility which in 
our human veterans we call discipline — is worth}^ of our 
recollection when we look at our great captives. But 
why should we offend against the majesty of the ele- 
phant by applauding him for carrjang children to and 
fro unhurt? A bullock could not do less. 

Then, again, the marvel that the elephant should 
pick up a pin ! It can do so, of course, but it is a pity 
that it should ; for elephants that go about picking up 
pins derogate something from their dignity, just as 
much as those others who, to amuse the guests of Ger- 
manicus, carried a comrade on a litter along tight ropes, 
and executed thereafter a PjTrhic dance. It is surely 
preferable, recalling the elephants of history, to forget 
these unseemly saltations and the mocking records of 
^lian and of Pliny, and to remember rather that one 
single elephant alone sufficed to frighten the whole na- 
tion of Britons into fits ; that as the leaders of armies 
they played a splendid part in nearl}^ every old-world 
invasion, from that of Bacchus to that of Hannibal ; and 
that their classic glories and the traditions of their in- 
telligent co-operation with men have invested them with 
special sanctity for millions of men and women in the 
East. How magnificent^ the}^ loom out from the mili- 
tary records of Pj'rrhus and Mithridates, Semiramis and 
Alexander and Caesar ; and what a world of tender 
reverence gathers round their name when we think of 
them to-day as the objects of gentle worship in India, — 
"My Lord the Elephant!" To look at an elephant 
through the wrong end of a telescope is to put an af- 
front upon the animal to whom Asia and Africa now 
appeal for an assistance, otherwise impossible, in war 
and in commerce. 



156 Unnatural History, 

It was they who dragged to Candahar and Cabul the 
guns that shook Shere Ali from his Afghan throne and 
avenged the British Envoy's murder ; and now they are 
swinging across AMca from the East to meet the steam- 
ers coming up the Livingstone from the West, and thus 
clasp the girdle of commerce round the Dark Continent. 

But the narrative of this expedition is so full, as it 
seems to me, of picturesque interest, that I think it may 
find a place in these discursive pages. 

The animals, then, were supplied by the Poona stud 
— at the expense of the King of the Belgians — and in 
marching them along the high road to Bombay, ele- 
phants being common objects of the country in that 
presidency, no exceptional diflSculties presented them- 
selves. 

Arrived, however, at the seashore, where elephants do 
not abound, it was discovered that no one knew what to 
do with the bulky pachyderms, or how to get them off 
the wharf into the ship. A crowd collected round 
the strangers, and, while everybody was offering advice, 
the elephants took fright and charged the council, who 
precipitately fled. To a practical person, who, it would 
appear, had remained out of the way while the charging 
was going on, it then suggested itself, that, as elephants 
had been slung on board ship during the Abyssinian 
war, they might be slung again, provided the gear was 
of elephantine calibre. The weight of an elephant, 
however, was an unknown quantity, but a general aver- 
age of twenty tons being mooted was accepted by the 
company as a safe estimate — an elephant as a rule 
being something less than three tons. The gear was 
therefore adapted to a weight of twenty tons, and the 



Me,;phants. 157 



mammoths, being got into position, were safely slung 
on board, and the steamer sailed. 

During the voyage the elephants would persist in 
standing up all daj^ and night, and the swaying of their 
huge bodies with the motion of the ship nearly dislo- 
cated even their columnar legs, — nearty fractured also 
the timbers of the deck. But at last they were urged 
into kneeling down, while a judicious addition of props 
kept the deck in its place : and thus the elephants got 
safely across the seas to Zanzibar. Then came another, 
difficulty : how were the creatures to be landed ? The 
ship could not go nearer to the shore than two miles, 
and there was neither raft, nor lighter, nor any other 
appliance for transporting them to land. Could they 
swim ? No one knew. 

There was nothing for it but to try. So one of 
the monsters — its name was the Budding Lily and it 
stood ten feet high — was gravely dropped overboard, 
with a man on its back. The elephant solemnlj^ sank 
until the man was under water, and then as solemnl}' 
reappeared. Gne look round sufficed to explain the 
position to the poor beast, which, hopeless of ever 
reaching the distant shore, turned round and made 
frantic efforts to get on board again ! In vain the 
mahout -belabored it. The elephant kept its head 
against the ship's side. In vain they tried to tow it 
behind a boat, for though, when exhausted with strug- 
ling, the huge bulk was dragged a short distance, re- 
turning strength soon enabled it to drag the boat back 
to the ship. 

And so for an hour, rain pelting hard all the time, the 
wretched monster floundered about in the sea, and 
scrambled against the ship's timbers, now floating along- 



158 Unnatural History. 

side without anj^ sign of life, now plunging rnadl}" round 
with the ridiculous boat in tow. That it would have 
drowned ultimately seemed bej'ond doubt, but on a 
sudden the great thing's intelligence supplemented that 
of the human beings who were with it, and making up 
•its' mind that life was worth another effort, and that 
the ship was unscalable, the elephant began to swim. 
Again and again, before it reached the first sandbank, 
its strength or pluck failed ; but the boat was always at 
iiand to encourage or irritate it to renewed exei'tions, 
and so at last, after nearlj^ four hours' immersion, the 
first Behemoth got on shore. Away in the distance 
those watching from the ship could make out the great 
black bulk creeping up the sward. Under a tree close 
\)y stood its attendant, and in the enjoyment of the 
monstrous cakes of sugar, rum, flour, and spices which 
had been prepared for it, and the luxury of a careful 
rubbing down with warm blankets, the Captain Webb 
of the elephant world recovered its equanimity and 
spirits. 

Her companions, the Flower Garland, Beaut}^, and 
the Wonder-Inspirer, emboldened by Budding Lily's 
performance, soon joined her on African soil. 

The object of their deportation was twofold, for the}^ 
had in the first place to prove, in their own persons, the 
adaptability of their kind to be the carriers of merchan- 
dise across the Central African solitudes, and in the next 
to tame and civilize to the service of man the great 
herds of their wild congeners, the, African elephants, 
roaming in the forests through which the highways of 
Arab trade now pass. " 

There is ver}^ little difierence between the two species, 
the Indian and the African. The latter has much larger 



Elephants. 159 

ears and finer tusks, and its forehead is convex, while 
the Asiatic animal prefers to have it concave. The 
African elephant, however, is as amenable to discipline 
as the other. For there can be no doubt that it was the 
African elephant which charged with the armies of 
Hannibal and Pyrrhus, and danced before Nero and 
Galba. 

He is, indeed, a truly splendid mammal, a remnant 
worthy of the great diluvian period when giant pachy- 
derms divided among them the empire of a world of 
mud. He remains, like the one colossal ruin of the 
old Eg}^3tian city, to remind us what the old Africa was 
like. 

But the world of trade stands in need to-da}^ of the 
African elephant ; and out of his statelj^ solitude, there- 
fore, he must come to carr}^ from the forest to the coast 
the produce which our markets demand. And for his 
capture the Arab and Zanzibari can have no more skilful 
assistants, or it may be teachers, than the veterans of 
the Indian khedda that have now gone out. Many 
a wild tusker, no doubt, has Beaut^r pommelled into 
servilit}^, and many a one has Budding Lily coaxed 
b}^. her treacherous blandishments into the toils of the 
Philistines. The tame females, it is well known, seem 
to take a positive delight in betraying the Samsons of 
the jungle into slaver}^ ; for, after lavishing their 
caresses upon them till they have tempted them within 
the fatal circle, the}^ leave them, with a spiteful thump 
at parting, to the mercy of their captors. 

When the Prince of Wales was in India, an elephant- 
hunt was among the amusements provided for his 
Ro3^al Highness by that most roj^al of entertainers, and 
of murderers, Jung Bahadur, of Nepal, and in the con- 



160 Umiatural History. 

temporary records of the expedition, full justice has 
been done to that thrilling episode of the Prince's 
visit. The heroes of the capture were Jung Pershad 
and Bijh Pershad. The former, in height, weight, and 
courage, was superior to all the eight hundred elephants 
of the Nepalese stud, while BijU, "The Lightning," 
had no match" for speed and pluck combined. The first 
wild tusker sighted was a magnificent fellow, sulking 
and fuming in a clump of tall jungle grass, and when- 
ever he charged out of it the ordinary fighting ele- 
phants brought up at first against him fled before him. 
Then, with all the leisurely solemnity befitting his re- 
nown, old Jung Pershad came swinging up. But, no 
sooner had the huge bruiser hove in sight than the wild 
giant, measuring him at a glance, confessed his master, 
and fled before the overpowering presence. The grand 
old gladiator did not attempt pursuit. His bulk forbade 
it, and so did the etiquette of his profession. 

To his friend and colleague in many a previous fight, 
Bijli the swift-footed, pertained the privilege of pursuit, 
and from the moment when the quarry perceived the 
strangely rapid advance of his new antagonist, he rec- 
cognized the gravity of his peril. Fhght from Bijli was 
as vain as contest with Jung. So he swung round in 
his stride, and for full two minutes the pursuer and 
pursued stood absolutely motionless and silent, face to 
face. And then, on a sudden and with one accord, 
" with their trunks upraised and their great ears spread, 
and with a crash like two rocks faUing together, the 
giants rushed upon each other. There was no reser- 
vation about that charge : they came together with all 
their weight, and all their speed, and all their heart." 
But the skill that comes of practice gave the pro- 



EU'phants. 161 



fessional just the one point he needed to beat so 
splendid an amateur ; and he beat him ' ' by some- 
times ramming him against a tree, sometimes poking 
him in the side so as almost to knock him over, some- 
times raising his trunk above his head, and bringing it 
down on the poor tusker's neck. At last the wild ele- 
phant fairly gave up, surrendered, and made no further 
pretence of either fighting or flying." 

Henceforth, in far other scenes, other Jung Pershads 
and other Bijlis, mighty in battle, will win renown, and, 
winning it, will do for Central Africa what the camel 
has done for Central Asia, and what ships have done 
for all the world's coasts. They will be the pioneers of 
trade, true missionaries, Asia's contingent in the little 
army that has set out to conquer, but without blood- 
shed, the desperate savager}^ of the Dark Continent. 

At any rate it was a finely picturesque conception, 
this of compelling the Behemoths of the Indian jungles 
to serve in the subjection of the Titans of the African 
forests, and to bring face to face, in the centre of 
a continent, the two sole survivors of a once mighty 
order ; and I could never look at Jumbo lounging along 
the path in the Zo5logical Gardens without thinking 
also of his noble kinsmen working their way in the 
cause of civilization and of man across the Dark Con- 
tinent. 

Sagacity and docility are, no doubt, therefore, virtues 
which the elephant shares with man, but it is hardly 
fair to it to illustrate its intelligence by quoting the de- 
plorable incident of the tailor, unless we are also pre- 
pared to illustrate the sagacity of men and women by 
referring to the performances of the Artful Dodger. 

11 



162 Unnatural History. 

Let us rather generously forget that elephantine lapse, 
just as we remember that, after all, Noah — in that 
' ' aged surprisal of six hundred years " only got drunk 
once. 

Nor, when we speak loftity of the elephant's docility, 
should we forget that the measure of this virtue may be 
gauged by the individual's capacities for the reverse. A 
white mouse is one of the most docile of animals, but 
w^hat would it matter if it were not ? A pinch of the 
tail would alwa3^s suffice to frighten it into abject sub- 
mission. But when the sagacious elephant decides for 
itself, as it often does, that docility is not worth the can- 
dle, that occasional turbulence, good-all-round rebellion, 
is wholesome for its temper and constitution, — who is 
going to pinch its tail? With one swing of its trunk it 
lays all the attendants flat, butts its head through an 
inconvenient wall, and is free ! They are brave men 
who capture the wild elephants, but no one, however 
brave, tries to capture a mad one. It has to be shot 
in its tracks, dropped standing, for it is then something 
more than a mere wild animal. It has developed into a 
creature of deliberate will and, having in its own mind 
weighed the pros and cons, has come to the fixed con- 
clusion that captivit}" is a mistake, and proceeds there- 
fore on a definite line of intelligent and malignant 
action. 

Indeed, among the episodes of Indian rural life there 
are few more appalling than such a one as that of the 
Mad Elephant of Mundla. It had been for many years 
a docile inmate of a government stud, but one day 
made up its mind to be infamous. Wise men have be- 
fore now told the world that it is well to be drunk once 
a month, and others that we should not always abstain 



Elephants. 163 



from that which is hurtful ; so the elephant, determining 
upon a bout of wrong-doing, had some precedent to 
excuse him. The elephantine proportions of his misde- 
meanors, however, made his lapse from docility appal- 
ling to mere men and women whose individual wicked 
acts are naturallj^ on so diminutive a scale ; but, com- 
paratively speaking, the gigantic mammal was simply 
"on the spree." Neverthless, it desolated villages 
with nearly every horrible circumstance of cruelty 
lately practised by the Christians of Bulgaria, and laid 
its plans with such consummate cunning that skilled 
police, well mounted and patroUing the country, were 
baffled for many days in their pursuit of the midnight 
terror. It came and went with extraordinary secrecy 
and speed from point to point, leaving none alive upon 
the high roads to tell the pursuers which way it had 
gone, and only a smashed village and trampled corpses 
to show where it had last appeared. It confused its 
own tracks by doubling upon its pursuers and crossing 
the spoor of the elephants that accompanied them. 

It was not merely wild. It was also mad — and as 
cunning and as cruel as a mad man. 

But insanity itself may be accepted, if 3^ou like, as a 
tribute to the animal's intelligence, for suc^den downright 
madness presumes strong brain power. Owls never go 
mad. They may go silly, or they may be born idiots ; 
but, as OKver Wendell Holmes says, a weak mind does 
not accumulate force enough to hurt itself Stupidity 
often saves a man from insanity. 

It is also curious to notice how the size of Jumbo 
strikes so many as being somehow very creditable to 
Behemoth. But praise of such a kind is hardly worth the 



164 Unnatural Hi 



acceptance of even the hippopotamus. "The wisdom 
of God," saj's Sir Thomas Browne, "receives small honor 
from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about and, 
with a gross rusticity, admire His works ; " and it is 
certainly gross rusticity to attribute credit to the ele- 
phant for being big. After all, he is not so big as other 
creatures living, nor as he himself might have been a few 
centuries ago. Moreover, though giants seem alwaj^s 
popular, there is little virtue in mere size. The whale, 
driving along through vast ocean spaces, displaces, it is 
true, prodigious quantities of water, but the onlj^ admi- 
rable points about him, nevertheless, are his whalebone 
and his blubber. He is simply a wild oil barrel, and the 
more cheaph^ he can be caught and bottled off the better. 

But speaking of personal bulk as a feature to be 
complimented, there is an illustration at my hand here in 
the next enclosure — for who could honestty congratu- 
late the hippopotamus upon its proportions? 

Men ought to have a grudge against this inflated 
monster, for it is one of the happiest and most use- 
less of living things. Its happiness in a natural state 
is simply abominable when taken in connection with its 
worthlessness ; and the rhinoceros, next door there, is 
no better. Providence, to quote the well known judge, 
has given them health and strength — " instead of which ^'^ 
they go about munching vegetables and wallowing in 
warm pools. They do absolutely nothing for their liveli- 
hood, except now and then affront the elephant. Even 
for this the hippopotamus is too sensual and too indo- 
lent ; but the rhinoceros often presumes to hold the path 
against the King of the Forests. Their bulk, therefore, 
is either abused by them or wasted, so that their mon- 
strous size and strength really become a reproach. 



Elephants. 165 



With the elephant it is very different. Ever}^ ounce of 
his weight goes to the help of man, and every inch of 
his stature to his service. 

I have said above that giants are always popular, 
and as perhaps the observation may be contested in 
the nursery, I would here, in the chapter on gigantic 
animals, interpolate my defence. Once upon a time, and 
not so long ago either, two bulky Irishmen were walk- 
ing in San Francisco, when they met a foreigner saunter- 
ing along the street. Now they both hated foreigners, 
so they proceeded to assault him, whereupon the stranger 
took his hands out of his pockets, and, catching hold of 
the two Irishmen, banged their bodies together until they 
were half dead. The foreigner's performance drew the 
attention of passers-by to him, and they noticed, 
what the Irishmen had not discovered until too late, that 
the stranger was a man of gigantic physical strength. 
They also remarked that but for the feat he had per- 
formed this Hercules might have gone to and fro un- 
suspected, for not onl}^ was his demeanor modest and 
unassuming, but his face wore a gentle and benevolent ex- 
pressian. He was, in fact, of the true giant breed, reduced 
in proportions to suit modern times, but having about 
him, nevertheless, all the thews and the inoffensive dis- 
position of the original Blunderbore. 

To explain my meaning further I need only refer to 
the history of that overgrown but otherwise estimable per- 
son whose lodgings were burglariously entered by a young 
person named Jack, who for no apparent reason — such 
was the laxit}^ of the public morals in those days — 
climbed up, so we are asked to believe, the stalk of a 
leguminous vegetable of the bean kind, and, having 



166 Unnatural History. 

effected a forcible entrj- into the giant's premises, robbed 
the amiable but stertorous Blunderbore of the most 
valuable of his effects. Here, then, is a case in point of 
a person of retiring habits being assaulted simply because 
he was of gigantic size and strength, and of the public 
condoning the assault on that account alone. It is con- 
tended, I know, that Jack was incited to his crimes by a 
cock-and-bull storj^ about the giant's castle having be- 
longed to Jack's father, told to the boy b}" an old woman 
whom he chanced to find loitering about his mother's 
cottage, — with one e3^e, depend upon it, all the time on 
the linen spread out on the hedge. But it was just like 
the vagabond's impudence to foist her nonsense on a 
mere child. For after all, how could Jack's father have 
had a castle in the clouds, unless he had been a magi- 
cian? — in which case Jack himself was little better, 
and his mother, hj presumption, a witch ; in which case 
they ought all to have been ducked in the horse-pond 
together. 

Whether this Jack was the same person who, in after- 
life, settled down to industrious habits, and, presumably 
unassisted, built a House for himself, chieflj' remarkable 
for the zoological experiences in which it resulted, I am 
unable to determine. But looking to the antecedents of 
the Giant-killer, his laziness at home, and his unthrifty 
bargain in that matter of his mother's cow, I should 
hesitate, even with the memor}^ of Alcibiades's conversion 
to Spartan austerity in mj mind, to believe in such a 
reformation as this, of a 3^oung burglar turning into a 
middle-aged and respectable householder. In the mean 
time it is noteworthy that the Jack of the Beanstalk 
was a boy of forward and larcenous habits, that he 
committed an unprovoked series of outrages upon a 



Elephants. " 167 



giant in whose house he had been well treated, and 
that the giant was an affable personage of great sim- 
phcity of mind and easil}^ amused, kind to poultry and 
fond of string music. 

Indeed, had he not been so excessively large it is prob- 
able he would have been a very ordinary person in- 
deed. This, at any rate, seems certain, that if he had 
been any smaller he would not have been either so simple 
or so shabbily treated. It has always been the misfortune 
of huge stature to be taken advantage of, and so many 
men of strength have been betrayed and brought to 
grief by Jacks and Aladdins, Omphales and Delilahs, 
that it has come to be understood that when a man is 
preternaturally strong he should be also extremely un- 
assuming in demeanor, and liable, therefore, to unpro- 
voked aggression. 

It has, I know, been gravely endeavored, by a certain 
class, to shake the world's belief in the existence of 
giants, but the attempt has been fortunately unsuccess- 
ful. No argument, however ingenious, erudite, or 
forcible, can knock out of sight such an extremely ob- 
vious fact as a giant; and I consider, therefore, that 
Maclaurin, who attempted to demonstrate, by the 
destructive method and mathematics, the impossibihty 
of giants, might have saved himself the labor of such 
profane calculations. The destructive argument, how- 
ever, I confess, has this mucli in its favor, that it 
explains why many of the Anakim are weak in the 
knees, for, inasmuch as the forces tending to destroy 
cohesion in masses of matter arising from their own 
gravity only increase in the quadruplicate ratio of their 
lengths, the opposite^ forces, tending to preserve that 
cohesion, increase only in the triplicate ratio. It follows, 



168 Unnatural History. 

therefore, that if we only make the giant long enough he 
must, b}' mathematics, go at the knee joints. 

Indeed, in our own modern literature will be found 
much excellent matter with regard to weak-kneed giants 
from which it appears that the show-frequenting public 
take no delight whatever in infirm Goliaths ; and those 
who may have any to exhibit will do better to put the 
feeble-legged Gogs and Magogs to useful tasks about the 
house or back-garden than display them in public for 
gain. In one of these stories the giants, when they 
became decrepid, waited upon the dwarfs attached to the 
show. The tendency to mock at a giant becomes, among 
the lower orders, uncontrollable when Blunderbore is 
shak}^ in the lower limbs ; and under these circumstances, 
as it is not legal to make away with giants when used up, 
he should be either kept in entire obscurity, or only have 
the uppermost half of him exhibited. 

This inclination to make fun of men of exceptionally 
large stature or extraordinary strength may be due to a 
half-recognized impression on the mind that such persons 
are out of our own sphere, superhuman, and preposterous. 
The}^ are out of date, too, being, as it were, relics of 
fables and the representatives of a past world, in which 
they kept the company of gnomes and dwarfs, ogres, 
hobgoblins, and other absurd gentry of the kind, living 
irregular lives, perpetually subject, from their great size, 
to dangerous accidents, and, as a rule, coming to sud- 
den and ridiculous ends. It was very seldom, indeed, 
that a giant maintained his dignity to the last, and 
there hangs, therefore, a vapor of the ludicrous about 
the memory of the race, so that nowadays men speak 
of them all as laughable and rather foolish folk. 

In the stories which are so precious to childhood, 



Ele^phants. 169 



giants, when they have not got ogresses as wives, are 
never objects of complete aversion. On the contrary, 
the young reader rejoices over the downfall of the bulky 
one, not on the score of his vices, or because he 
deserves his fate, but because the child's sympathies 
naturally incline towards the undersized personages of 
the story ; and if the poor blundering old giant could 
be only brought up smiling over a hasty pudding on the 
last page, the story would not be thought, in the nursery, 
to be Sinj the worse for that — so long, of course, as 
there was no doubt left in anybody's mind as to Jack 
being able to kill Blunderbore again, should Blunder- 
bore's conduct again justify his destruction. Some- 
times, I regret to remember, the giants went about 
collecting children for pies, and from such as these all 
right- minded men should withhold their esteem ; but 
for the rest, the ordinary muscular and inoffensive 
giant, it is impossible to deny a certain liking, nor, 
when he is provoked to display his strength, a great 
admiration. 



170 Unnatural History. 



IV. 

THE ELEPHANT'S FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN. 

The Rhinoceros a Victim of Ill-Natured Personality. — In the 
Glacial Period. — The Hippopotamus. — Popular Sympathy 
with it. — Behemoth a Useless Person. — Extinct Monsters and 
the World they Lived in. — The Impossible Giraffe. — Its In- 
telligent use of its Head as a Hammer. — The Advantages and 
Disadvantages of so much Neck. —Its High Living. — The 
Zebra. — Nature's Parsimony in the matter of Paint on the 
Skins of Animals. — Some Suggestions towards more Gayety. 

ELEPHANTS, there is no doubt, are favorites 
with the public, and the}^ merit their popularity. 
It is difficult, perhaps, to say as much for their cousins, 
the rhinoceroses. For some reason or another, the 
public resent the personal appearance of these animals, 
and no one compliments them. Straightforward oppro- 
brium is bad enough, no doubt, but depreciatory in- 
nuendo is still harder to bear, just as the old writer tells 
us, in the matter of the patient patriarch, that " the 
oblique expostulations of his friends were a deeper 
injury to Job than the downright blows of the Devil." 

A rhinoceros, therefore, when he stands at the bars 
with his mouth open in expectation of the donation 
which is seldom thrown in, hears much that must em- 
bitter his hours of solitary reflection. The remarks of 
visitors are never relieved by any reference to his 
sagacity or docility, as in the case of the elephant ; nor 



The Elephant^ s Fellow- Countrymen. 171 

does any appreciation of usefulness to man temper the 
severity of their judgments upon him. That he is very 
ugly and looks very wicked is the burden of all criticism, 
and it is a wonder that under such perpetual provocation 
to do so he does not grow uglier and look wickeder 
than he is. No ordinarj^ man could go on being called 
' ' a hideous brute " for any great number of years with- 
out assuming a truculent and unlovable aspect ; and it 
would not, therefore, be much matter for surprise if the 
rhinoceros, although such conduct were altogether 
foreign to his character and even distasteful to his feel- 
ings, should develop a taste for human flesh. 

As it is, he munches hay — not with any enthusiasm, 
it is true, but with a subdued satisfaction that bespeaks 
a philosophic and contented mind. 

In the wild state, whether he be the African species or 
the Asiatic, the rhinoceros is a laz}^, quiet-loving beast, 
passing his days in slumber in some secluded swamp of 
reed-bed, and coming out at night to browse along the 
wild pastures that offer themselves on forest edges or 
the water-side. In his caged condition his life is simpty 
reversed, for his days are spent under the public ej^e, in 
wakefulness and mental irritation, while his nights are 
given unnaturall}" to repose and solitude. There are no 
succulent expanses of grass and river herbage to tempt 
him abroad with his fellows, as in the nights of liberty in 
Nubia or Assam ; and let the moonlight be ever so 
bright he cannot now, as once, saunter away for pailes 
along the lush banks of some Javan stream, or loiter 
feeding among the squashy brakes of the Nile. But 
captivity, if it robs him of freedom, injures the rhi- 
noceros less than most of the beasts of the field, for he 
was never given to much exercise, and his life was an 



172 Unnatural History. 

indolent one. Now and again, it is true, the hunters 
found him out, and awakened him to an unusual viva- 
city, and on such occasions he developed a nimbleness 
of limb and ferocit}^ of temper that might hardly have 
been expected of so bulk}" and retiring an individual. 
Sometimes also he crossed the elephant on his jungle 
path, and in a sudden rush upon his noble kinsman vin- 
dicated his right of way, and expended all the stored- 
up energy of many months of luxurious idleness. But 
such sensations were few and far between. As a rule, 
his company were diminutive and deferential — wading 
birds of cautious habits, and the deliberative pelicans, 
wild pigs, and creatures of the ichneumon kind. The 
great carnivora never troubled their heads about such a 
preposterous victim, and the nations of the deer kind, 
couching b}^ day in the forest depths and feeding by 
night in the open plain, saw nothing of the bulk}" rhi- 
noceros. He lived therefore in virtual solitude, — for 
water- fowl and weasels were hardly worth calling com- 
panions, — and was indeed so vigilant in guarding his 
concealment that he remained a secret for ages. 

The rhinoceros, therefore, figures nowhere in folk-lore, 
and neither fairy tale nor fable has anything to tell us 
of it. Art owes little to it, and commerce nothing. It 
points no moral and adorns no tale. Unassisted by as- 
sociations, and possessing neither a literature nor a place 
in the fauna of fanc}^ the monstrous thing relies for 
sympathy and regard simpty upon its merits, and these 
have sadly failed to ingratiate it. 

With the hippopotamus the case is somewhat differ- 
ent, for the apparently" defenceless nature of the river- 
horse enlists public sj-mpathy on his behalf, while the 
very absurdity of his appearance disarms ill-natured 



The Elephant's Fellow-Country men. 173 

criticism. The horn of the rhinoceros is its ruin, for 
the popular esteem will never be extended to a creature 
that carries about on the tip of his nose such a formidable 
implement of offence. The hippopotamus, fortunately 
for itself, is unarmed, so that a certain compassionate 
regard is not considered out of place. Its skin, though 
ludicrous, looks smooth and tight, suggesting vulnera- 
bility, or even a tendency to burst on any occasion of 
violent impact with a foreign bod}', while the rhinoceros 
wears an ill-fitting suit of impenetrable leather, which 
hangs so easil}^ upon its limbs as to lead the spectators 
to suppose the brute had deliberate^ put it on as a kind 
of overcoat for defence against anj^ possible assailants. 
Thus prepared for emergencies, it carries its bulk about 
with a self-reliant demeanor that, taken in conjunction 
with the aggressive tone in which it grunts, alienates 
all tenderness of feeling, and makes sentiment im- 
possible. 

The hippopotamus, on the other hand, seems to have 
had all its arrangements made for it without being con- 
sulted beforehand, and to submit to the personal incon- 
veniences that result with a mild and deprecatory 
manner that commends it to S3'mpathetic consideration. 
Had proofs of its own future appearance been sent in to 
the hippopotamus to revise, it might have suggested 
several useful alterations, — a greater length of leg in 
order to keep its stomach off the ground, and a head 
on such a reasonably reduced scale that it could hold 
it up. 

As matters stand. Behemoth lives under considerable 
disadvantages. It is true that he is amphibious, and 
that when tired of dragging his bulky person about on 
the land he can roll into the water and float there. But 



174 Unnatural History. 

this dual existence hardly makes amends for the dis- 
comforts of such a bladder-like bod}' . The world, how- 
^ever, owes both the hippopotamus and the rhinoceros a 
grudge, inasmuch as neither contributes to human wel- 
fare. That their hides make good leather is no adequate 
justification for such huge entities, and the fact of their 
teeth and horns being useful for paper-knives and 
walking-sticks hardly authorizes two prodigious crea- 
tures to occupy so much terrestrial space. It is centu- 
ries ago since the elephant made good its claim to be 
considered a friend and benefactor of the human race, 
but neither of its great companions has ever bestirred 
itself in the service of men. Their day, perhaps, is 
coming. 

Immense tracts of country are being now opened 
up in Africa to the world's industries, and the high- 
waj^s of future commerce lie right through the homes 
of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus. How startling 
will be the eflTect upon the wild creatures of the forests 
and the rivers ! Long-estabhshed nations of monkeys 
and baboons will be driven by the busy axe from the 
shades they have haunted for generations, and as, 
league after league, the creepers and undergrowth are 
cleared awa}', multitudes of animal life will have notice 
to quit. Progress will order them to move on, and so 
by their families and parishes the}^ will have to go, — the 
sulk}^ leopard-folk and solemn lemurs, troops of squirrel 
and wild-cat, and the weasels by their tribes. Diligent 
men will mow down the cane-beds that have housed 
centuries of crocodiles, and the exquisite islands will be 
cleared of jungle that human beings ma}^ take possession 
of the ancestral domains of the lizard kinds. Wilder- 
nesses of snakes will have to go, and out of the giant 



The Elephant^ s Fellow-Countrymen. 175 

reeds flocks of great water-fowl will rush startled from 
their hiding-places. Advancing to where the older 
timber grows and the nobler plains are spread, the 
colonist will disturb the bulky rhinoceros and the lordly 
elephant ; and in the creeks of river and lake that will 
come under man's dominion the hippopotamus will find 
its right of place challenged. The time, therefore, it 
may be, is not far distant when the present waste of 
traction power will cease, and the two monsters, hitherto 
useless, be trained to drag our caravans across the 
plains and our barges down the rivers of the Dark 
Continent. 

From my speaking of the elephant as a Mammoth, 
of the rhinoceros as a Titan,, and the hippopotamus as 
Behemoth, jou might fairly charge me, reader, with 
having forgotten that these animals, big as we think them, 
are really after all only the pygmies of their species. 
But I had not really forgotten it, for before me lies a 
paragraph announcing the discovery, in Siberia, of one- 
of those colossal animals, which nature is very fond of 
dropping in, in a casual way, every now and then, just to 
keep our pride down and to remind us, the creatures of a 
degenerate growth, what winter meant in the 3^ears gone 
bj^ and what kind of person an inhabitant of the earth 
then was. 

He had to be very big indeed, very strong, and very 
warmly clad, to be called "the fittest" in the Glacial 
Period, and to survive the fierce assaults of the Palaeo- 
lithic cold. This rhinoceros, therefore, exceeds by some 
cubits the stature of the modern beast, and is also by 
some tons heavier. 

It appears that an aflluent of the Tana River was 
making alterations in its course, and in so doing cut 



176 Unnatural History. 

away its banks, revealing the embedded presence of a 
truly Titanic pachyderm, which, for want of a fitter name, 
has been temporarily called a rhinoceros. But it is 
such a creature that if it were to show itself now in the 
swamps of Assam or on the plains of Central Africa, it 
would terrify off its path all the species of the present 
daj^, whether one-horned or two-horned, and make no 
more of an obstinate elephant than an avalanche does 
of a goatherd's hut that happens to stand in the line of 
its advance. Its foot, if set down upon one of the 
rhinoceroses of modern times, would have flattened it as 
smooth as the philosopher's tub rolled out those naughty 
boys of Corinth, who had ventured to tickle the cynic 
through the bunghole with a straw. Besides its size, the 
huge monster in question asserts its superioritj^ over 
existing species by being clothed in long hair, a fleece to 
guard it against the climate in which it Uved, and from 
which even the tremendous panoply of the nineteenth- 
century rhinoceros could not sufficiently protect the 
wearer. Thus clad in a woolly hide and colossal in 
physique, the Siberian mammal not onlj^ lived, but lived 
happily, amid snowy glaciers that would have frozen the 
polar bear and made icicles of Arctic foxes. 

Perhaps even man himself did not exist in the rhino- 
ceros's day ; at any rate, if he did, he had the decency to 
secrete himself in holes and burrows, and when the mam- 
moths came along the road to get out of their way. He 
was a feeble creature at first, and his best accomplish- 
ments were those that taught him how to escape his many 
foes, for our ancestors had but little time for the culti- 
vation of other arts and sciences when the best part of 
their days and nights had to be spent in scrambling up 
trees out of the reach of prowling carnivora, and running 



The ElepTianfs Fellow- Countrymen. 177 

awa}^ from ill-tempered things of the rhinoceros and 
elephant kind. Graduall}^, however, he began to defend 
himself, and from defence he rose at last to the dignity 
of offence. Armed only with flint-stones, he had the 
audacity, this progenitor of ours, to attack the bulky 
pachyderms ; and, if the testimony of the crags and clay 
ma}^ be believed, he actually overcame the Goliaths of 
the forest with his pebbles. Were it not, indeed, for 
these relics of the age of flint weapons, it might be 
doubted whether man was ever contemporarj^ in Britain 
with the mammoth ; but as matters stand, there is ever}^ 
reason for supposing that he was. Whether this juxta- 
position of human implements and animal skeletons 
means that our ancestors slew the beast or that the 
beast ate our ancestors, it is impossible to say. Proba- 
bly they both gave and took. 

It was an age of silence and twilight and snow ; an 
epoch of monsters. 

In Australia a huge marsupial, with the head of an ox, 
and compared to which our kangaroo is only a great rat, 
straddled and hopped about as it pleased, in the company 
of wombats as big as bears ; and in America the mega- 
therian sloth crept browsing among the forests of the 
primeval continent, like some bulky thing of Dreamland, 
voiceless, solitary, and slow-footed ; while the glj^ptodon 
— the wondrous armadillo of the past, that could have 
driven its way through a street of houses as easily as the 
mole tunnels through the furrows of a field — wandered 
with the same strange loitering pace along the river 
banks. In those days there was no need- for the beasts 
to hurry, for life was long and there was nothing to harm 
them ; so they crawled about on land and waded in the 
water as lazily as they pleased. It is true that the extinct 

12 



178 Unnatural History. 

kangaroo, as big as a hippopotamus in the bod}", had an 
enemj" in the pouched lion ; but there were twenty 
kinds of lesser kangaroos which the carnivorous beast 
could attack first ; so the largest lived on in peace and 
flourished, growing more and more huge, until at last 
Man appeared in a spectral sort of waj' upon the scene, 
and annihilated the genus. For reptiles, our own colo- 
nies in Africa supply individuals worthy in ever}" way 
to have been the contemporaries of these giants. Huge 
herbivorous dragons — two-tusked reptiles with the skulls 
of crocodiles — grazed along the rich pastures of the 
antediluvian Africa ; and iguanadons, prodigious crea- 
tures of the lizard kind, with large, flattened, crushing 
teeth covering the palate above like a paving-stone, 
and working upon a corresponding breadth of surface 
in the lower jaw. 

For birds, again, we need go no farther — for we should 
certainl}^ fare no better — than our own colony of New 
Zealand, which monopolizes the wonders of the bird 
paradise, where a score of gigantic feathered things, as 
big as camels, had the islands all to themselves, feeding 
to their hearts' content on the nutritious fern-roots. The 
nurseries of the dinornis and the moa had, however, 
their hogey in the terrible harpagornis, a bird of prey 
far larger than the condor or the lammergeyer, and 
sufficient in itself to justify- the old-world traditions of 
the roc, the sirmurg, and the other gigantic fowls of 
story. But the adult birds had no cause for fear even 
from such an eagle as this ; and so the geese grew so big 
that they could not fl}^ and gradually dispensed with 
wings, and the coots became so prodigious that they, too, 
gave up flying as a troublesome and unnecessar}' method 
of locomotion ; and everything at last came to waddhng 



Tlie Elephant's Fellow-Cowitrymen. 179 

about together, too fat to go fast, and so secure from 
harm that they had no cause for haste. 

It was a grand world in one sense, but a stupid, useless 
world in other respects. The leviathans and the behe- 
moths of the time — creatures of unlimited space and time 
and food — prowled about, without au y horizon to their 
migrations, cropping the herbage as they went and dying 
where they happened to be standing last. They would 
not even take the trouble to settle for posterity the ques- 
tion as to the exact limits of their habitation, but dropped 
their preposterous bones into snowdrifts, which melted 
and swept them off to distant sea-beds, or into rivers 
which tumbled their venerable remains along from the 
centres of continents to their shores, or left them stranded, 
with all sorts of incongruous anachronisms, to puzzle the 
ages to came. 

For ever so many centuries nobody with any preten- 
sions to intelligence would believe that such a creature 
as the giraffe existed. It was its neck that did it, and 
a man who persisted in believing in that part of its body 
might have been sent to the stake for it. It was in vaiia 
that travellers tried to convince Europe that they had 
seen such an animal with their own e3^es, for as soon as 
they came to the neck part of their description they 
were put out of court at once. Yet it was a case of 
" neck or nothing," and, as our forefathers would not 
have the neck at any price, they had nothing. 

The idea of a zebra was difficult enough for them to 
entertain, but of a zebra gone to seed, in such a way as 
these travellers described the giraffe, appeared prepos- 
terous and impossible ; so they said. Yet in earlier 
days the giraffe was known to Europe, for Imperial, 



180 Unnatural History. 

wild-beast-killing Eome had not onh' known the camel- 
leopard, but had been much amused by it, for the 
giraffe has a method of fighting which is entirely original, 
and is a very pleasing illustration of the instinct which 
teaches wild animals to make the most of nature's gifts. 
The giraffe has neither claws nor tusks nor beak nor 
sting nor poison-fangs nor sharp teeth, nor yet hobnailed 
boots ; so when it is out of temper with one of its own 
kind it does not ^y in the face of Providence by tr^ang 
to scratch its antagonist's bowels out, as a tiger might, 
or toss it like a rhinoceros, or peck its eyes out like a 
vulture, or sting it like a scorpion, or strike it like a 
cobra, or fly at its throat like a wolf, or jump on it as 
the costermonger does. The sagacious animal is con- 
scious how foolish and futile such conduct on its part 
would be. On the contrary, the giraffe, remarking that 
it has been provided hy nature with a long and pliable 
neck, terminating in a very solid head, uses the upper 
half of itself like a flail, and, swinging its neck round 
and round in a way that does immense credit to its or- 
ganization, brings its head down at each swing with a 
thump on its adversar3\ The other combatant is equally 
sagacious, and adopts precisely the same tactics ; and 
the two animals, planting themselves as firmly as possi- 
ble by stretching out all four legs to the utmost, stand 
opposite each other hammering with their heads, till one 
or the other either splits its skull or bolts. 

Their heads are furnished with two stumpy horn-like 
processes, so that the giraffes, when busy at this ham- 
mer and tongs, remind the spectators somewhat of two 
ancient warriors thumping each other with the spiked 
balls the}^ used to carry for that purpose at the end of a 
chain. It is possible that the knowledge of this fact 



The Elephant's Fellow-Countrymen. 181 

about giraffes woirld have gone far towards convincing 
our obstinate forefathers and foremothers of the crea- 
ture's actual existence, and it is impossible, therefore, to 
deplore too sincerely the lamentable ignorance of natural 
history which deprived preceding generations of the en- 
joyment of this animal. To the Romans so eccentric a 
procedure in combat gTeatly endeared the giraffe ; and it 
is within the limits of reasonable expectation to believe 
that our ancestors of the Dark Ages would similarly 
have appreciated it had they allowed themselves to be 
so far convinced of its entity as to get one caught. 

For the giraffe is distinctlj^ an enjoyment. It is a 
pity, perhaps, that it has not got wings; but we must 
accept things as we find them, and, taken all round, 
there is no doubt that the camelopard is a comfort and 
a pleasure. It gives us hopes of further eccentricities, 
and contracts the limits of the marvellous. It is about 
the best instalment of the impossible that has been 
vouchsafed us. 

The hippopotamus is a great prodigy in its waj^, and 
the kangaroo is out of the common. But they are 
neither of them of the same class as this sky-raking 
animal, that passes all its life, so to speak, looking out 
of a fourth-story window. Think of the places it could 
live in ! A steeple would be as comfortable as possible 
for it, or its body might be put into a back kitchen and 
its head up the chimney. The cowl at the top outside 
would keep the rain off its head, and, as the wind blew it 
round and round, the giraffe, from its sweep's eminence, 
would be gratified by a gyroscopic view of the surround- 
ing country. It is the only animal that lives on the earth 
and never thinks about the ground it walks on. 

It takes terra firma as a matter of course, and does 



182 Unnatural History. 

not even trouble itself to find out where the trees grow 
from. It bxowses on the tops of them without troub- 
ling itself to wonder how leaves got so high up in the 
air ; and while other animals are snuffing about on the 
earth, and blowing up the dust to their own inconven- 
ience, the giraffe reconnoitres the ceihngs, and knows 
all about the beams. The hippopotamus in the next 
house would never even surmise that there was such a 
thing as a roof over him unless it were to fall on his 
head, but he thoroughly understands the bricks and flag- 
stones with which his apartments are paved ; but with 
the giraife it is just the reverse. Spiders, as a rule, 
build their cobwebs in the cornices, in order to be out of 
harm's way ; but in the giraffes' house, if they do not 
wish to be perpetuall}^ molested by sniffing, they have 
to build in the angles of the floor ; and, in the countries 
where giraffes are common, we may similarly presume 
that little birds never sit and sing on the tops of bushes, 
but always about the roots, or else the giraffes might 
accidentallj nibble them off the twigs. Sometimes, it is 
true, the gh^affe stoops to mammalian levels ; but there 
is something so lofty even in its condescension that 
the very act of bending enhances the haughtiness of its 
erect posture, and suggests that it does it from policy. 
To be always keeping state, and forever in the clouds, 
might make shorter animals accuse it of acting su- 
perciliously ; so, remembering' Bacon's maxim, that 
" amongst a man's inferiors one shall be sure of rever- 
ence, and therefore it is good a little to be famihar," it 
affably condescends at intervals. Its usual gestures are 
all cast in Alexandrines, and so, like the poets, it 
breaks a line every now and then to relieve the over- 
stateliness of the measure. 



The Elephant' s Fellow-Countrymen. 183 

It is difficult to believe that the giraffe finds much fun 
in life ; for, after all, most of the fun of the animal 
world goes on upon the ground. Of course, if the 
giraffe thinks itself a bird, it may be contented enough 
all by itself in the air, but its aspect is one of subdued 
melancholy, such as appertains to all anomalous posi- 
tions, whether those of queen-dowagers or dodos. The 
dodo, for instance, left all by itself as the last of its 
race (like Kingsley's poor old gairfowl on the All Alone 
Stone), must have had many sad moments. It was 
prevented, on the one hand, by the demise of all its 
kindred, from enjoying the society of its own species, 
and, on the other, by the dignity of being-about-to- 
become-extinct, from mingling in the social life of more 
modern fowls. The giraffe, in the same wa}-, moves 
about with a high-bred, languid grace that has more than 
a suspicion of weariness about it. 

Yet, taken all for all, it has not been hardly treated 
by nature. If its neck had been telescopic, like a tur- 
tle's, it would, indeed, have been unduly favored, but as 
it is it comes off impartially. Its long neck must nec- 
essarily betray it to its enemies, for no lion worth its 
salt could help seeing a giraffe as it lounged about, 
browsing in the middle of the sky, with its upper-t'gal- 
lant-stunsails set ; but then again the giraffe, from such 
an elevated lookout, should be able to descry the prowl- 
ing beast of prey at a greater distance. Its length of 
neck, again, so medical science assures us, secures it 
from all danger of apoplexy ; but on the other hand, it 
is terrible to think what a giraffe's sore throat would 
be like. Imagine seven feet of sore throat! Again, the 
camelopard carries no water-butts inside it, as the 
camels do, although it lives in the plains of Africa, 



184 Unnatural History. 

where water often fails ; but in recompense it has a 
tongue about two feet long — no small comfort to it 
when thirsty — and ej-es that project after the manner 
of a shrimp, so that, if it likes, it can look behind it and 
in front at the same time. Thus, counterbalancing de- 
fect and advantage, we find the giraffe very fairly off, 
while in the conditions of its wild life there is much to 
rank it among the happier of the beasts. 

Next door, so to speak, to the girafies are the zebras, 
and, passing from one to the other, the thought occurs 
how pleasantly- art might be made to supplement nature 
in the coloring of animals, or how agreeable it would have 
been if in the first instance Nature herself had painted 
a few more of the larger animals as she has decorated 
these two comrades of the African wilderness. 

In the bird world, color has been lavished prodigall}^, 
and among insects we find hues of every tone and bril- 
liance. The wicked caterpillar, for instance, is defended, 
from those who would take away his ill-spent life, by 
shades of green and brown that harmonize with the 
vegetables he ravages ; and wh}' was the same c.onsider- 
ate anxiet}' for its welfare not extended to the gentle 
hippopotamus ? 

A pea-green river-horse, browsing among the reed- 
beds of Old Nile, would have added a charm to the 
scene ; and Stanley would hardlj^ have been so angry 
with the behemoths of Victoria Nyanza if he had found 
them floating among the lotus-pads, painted in imitation 
of water-lilies. The rhinoceros, again, is a hideous ob- 
ject, from its vast expanse of mud-colored skin ; j^et what 
a surface he presents for a noble stud}^ in browns ! 

What fine effects of shade mio-ht not be obtained 



The Elephant's Fellow- Countrymen. ■ 185 

among those corrugated folds of hide ; or let us for a 
moment consider what he would look like hurnished! 
Nature has not stinted metallic tints in bird, or insect, 
or fish, or reptile ; and jQi in the mammals, where such 
magnificent results might have been attained, she with- 
held her hand. It is difficult, indeed, in these degene- 
rate da^^s to imagine such a superb spectacle as a herd 
of brazen elephants crashing their way through a 
primeval forest ; or rhinoceroses, glittering hke the dome 
of the Boston State House, wandering among the ruins 
of old Memphis ; or hippopotamuses of mother-o'-pearl, 
sporting on the bosom of Old Nile with electro-plated 
crocodiles ! 

The carnivora advantage by the accident of their 
painted skins ; but the zebra and the giraffe need no 
excusings for crime, for they commit none. They are 
innocent and beautiful at one and the same time. The 
hippopotamus, poor monster ! is only innocent, and the 
rhinoceros is neither, and each, therefore, receives from 
the public its i^roportion of depreciative comment ; the 
former being patronized for its helplessness, and ban- 
tered on its personal appearance ; the latter being 
rudely spoken of, not only for the ugliness of its looks, 
but the wickedness of them, the malicious twinkle in its 
little eyes, and that offensive horn at the tip of its nose, 
which Plin}^ tells us he always sharpens upon an agate 
before attacking the elephant. 

Now, if all were impartially adorned in colors, all 
would share more largely in public sympathy ; for just 
as no one now would think of shooting the gold and 
silver pheasants, no one then would think of prodding 
a golden rhinoceros with his umbrella, or betraying the 
confidence of a silver hippopotamus with empty paper- 
bags or the innutritions pebble. 



186 Unnatural History, 



V. 

CATS AND SPARROWS. 

They are of Two Species, tame and otherwise. — The Artificial 
Lion. — Its Debt of Gratitude to Landseer and the Poets. — Un- 
suitable for Domestication. — Is the Natural Lion the King of 
Beasts "? — The true Moral of all Lion Fables. — " Well roared, 
Lion ! " — The Tiger not of a Festive Kind. — There is no Non- 
sense about the Big Cats. — The Tiger's Pleasures and Perils. 

— Its Terrible Voice. — The poor Old Man-Eater. — Caught by 
Baboos and Killed by Sheep. —The great Cat Princes. —Com- 
mon or Garden Cats, approached sideways. — The Physical Im- 
possibility of Taxing Cats. — The Evasive Habits of Grimalkin. 

— Its Instinct for Cooks. — On the Roof with a Burglar. — The 
Prey of Cats. — The Turpitude of the Sparrow. — As an Em- 
blem of Conquest and an Article of Export. —The Street Boy 
among Birds. 

CATS are of two kinds at least, — the common or 
garden pussj^, and the wild or undomesticated 
felis. 

The former is of various colors and qualities, the gray 
specimens being called tabbies and the larger ones 
toms. Both are equally fond of fish, and their young 
(which are born blind) are called kittens, and are 
generally drowned. 

The latter, or undomesticated kind, is exactly like the 
former ; but it is usually much larger, and when ofi'ered 
milk it does not purr. One of these cats is called the 
lion. The lion, to be precise, is also of two sorts — 
the natural and the artificial — and on the whole the 



Cats and S^parroius. 187 



latter animal is the better of the two. It is generous 
and brave, the King of Beasts, and one of the support- 
ers of the British Arms. 

Landseer has done a great deal for this lion, and in 
Trafalgar Square in London has left on record four 
specimens, which all other lions, vel Africanus vel Asi- 
aticus should try and live up to. Other artists also, 
notabty Dore on canvass, and Thorwaldsen in stone, 
have advantaged the artificial lion very considerably, 
and both poets and lion-sla3^ers have done their best to 
elevate its moral and physical virtues in the public esti- 
mation, — the former from a mistaken estimate of this 
animal's character, derived from antiquity, the latter 
from a natural desire to represent themselves as being 
men of an extraordinary courage. These powerful 
agencies between them have succeeded in rehabilitating 
the artificial lion, who was at one time becoming rapidly 
absurd by the liberties taken with it in heraldry and on 
sign-boards. 

A lion rampant, with his tongue lolling out, and two 
knobs at the end of his tail, is only one of a hundred 
heraldic abeiTations from the normal tj^pe, which lovers 
of nature must agree in deploring ; and the green, blue, 
and red lions of English inns were all such ""fearful 
wild-fowl " as might make cats weep. There have even 
been spotted lions ! It was high time therefore for the 
artistic champions of the great cat to come to the front, 
or we might soon have had Tabby and Tortoise-shell 
lions and Tom lions on our sign-boards. 

What dignity after this would have attached to that 
haughty speech of the lioness who, being rallied by a 
grasshopper upon having only one cub, loftily replied, 
" Yes, true, I have only one — but that one is a lion." 



188 Unnatural History. 

The story has long been popular, and often been ap- 
plauded, but, a^ it seems to me, without sufficient judg- 
ment. What else could the lioness have expected to 
produce but a lion? Such was only to be anticipated. 

. Now if her cub had been a camel or a rhinoceros her 
, pride would have been justified by the' exceptional char- 
acter of her performance ; or if her offspring had been a 
hippopotamus or a giraffe, we might have accepted such 
complacenc}^ as not unnatural under the circumstances. 
But what are the facts of the case ? Or if again it had 
been even a lion rampant, with its tongue out, or a green 
lion, or a spotted one, we might have understood the 
tawn}" mother's exultation. As it was, her hauteur was 
surely misplaced. A lioness gives birth to a cub and it 
turns out a lion — voila tout ! Yet she was pleased on 
this account to snub the prolific insect who addressed 
her, as if she herself had done something out of the 
common, rare and worth talking about. As a matter 
of fact, after all, it was onl3' an ordinary, everj^-day 
lion. Moreover, it would have been quite within the 
grasshopper's right to retort, "A lion? Nonsense. It 
is only a cat — a kitten. I can hear it mewing." For 
the baby lion is faintly brindled, like the most ordinary 
of pussies, and mews precisely like the kitten in the 
nurser}^ 

Nevertheless, the artificial (or supernatural) lion dif- 
fers in man}^ valuable respects from the natural animal. 
It is magnanimous, as witness that story of the mouse 
that released the lion from a net and was dismissed by 
the lion with thanks. Now in a wild state the lion 
would have eaten the mouse, for it has the usual cat's 
taste for mice and rats ; and though, if the truth must 
be told, only an indifferent mouser, might no doubt be 



Cats and Sparrows. 189 

made useful in a kitchen. Besides clearing the domestic 
precincts of the cheese-nibbling folk, it would not be 
above catching the crickets on the hearth or the humble 
cockroach — and eating them. The lion in a wild state 
never disdains such small deer as insects. But whether 
our modern cooks and kitchen maids would care to 
have a promiscuous lion downstairs is another matter, 
and the doubt on this point suggests a very painful con- 
trast between the manners of the larger and the lesser 
cats. 

The lesser cat, it is only too true, is often so carried 
away by her feelings as to indulge in the surreptitious 
canar}^ ; and she has been known to forget herself so far 
during the niglit-watches as to skirmish on the window- 
sill, in the company of the cat from next door, with 
such vivacity and want of judgment as to upset flower- 
pots into the back-yard. The gravit}^ of these mis- 
demeanors cannot be slurred over, but, after all, to 
what do they amount compared to the havoc that would 
result from the domestication of some of the larger cats 
— such as lions ? 

Confessing his sins in a parliament of the beasts, the 
lion in the fable says: " J'ai devore force moutons ; 
meme il m'est arrive quelquefois de manger le berger ! " 
and from a shepherd to a cook is only a brief step. 
But between a canary and a cook there is a distance of 
many parasangs, and the enormity of the one offence is 
barely comparable to that of the other. Again, the 
light-hearted cat, when foregathering for frivolous con- 
verse with her kind, does damage, as has been said, to 
occasional flower-pots, and has even in her gayet}^ been 
known to fall ruinously through the kitchen window. 
But supposing we tried to keep lions about the place. 



190 Unnatural History. 

and our lion were to get on to the roof of the sum- 
mer-house or on the garden wall with the lion from 
next door, what would be the result? The roaring of 
the lion when at liberty' is said by those who have heard 
it to be something terrific. It lays its head, we are 
told, close to the earth, and in this position emits a 
tremendous utterance, which rolls growling along the 
ground like the first mutterings of a volcano. It could 
be heard all over the town, and we should never get a 
wink of sleep ! But if the lions got frolicsome the 
consequences would be even more dreadful. The gar- 
dens, with their uprooted shrubs, twisted railings, and 
dilapidated walls, would look next morning as if some 
earthquakes had been on the premises overnight and got 
drunk before leaving. 

This, however, is somewhat of a digression. To re- 
turn to the artificial lion and the points in which it 
differs from the natural animal, we find, besides its mag- 
nanimity, that this species possesses an unusual sense 
of honor. It is said, for instance, by those who wish to 
magnify it, that it roars before entering a jungle — in 
order to give all the little creatures in it a chance of 
running away. Tlie lion is too noble a beast, they 
say, to take a mean advantage of its neighbors, or to 
surprise any of them, even the humblest ; so it gives 
warning to the bystanders, like Mr. Snodgrass in the 
" Pickwick Papers," that it is " going to begin." But 
what are the facts ? The lion when on the lookout for 
a meal is as stealthy as a cat when compassing the ruin 
of the garden sparrow. It crawls along on its stomach, 
taking advantage of every tuft of cover and inequality 
of the ground, and maintaining a perfect silence. More 



Cats and Sparrows. 191 

often still it lies in ambush for its victim ; and those who 
have watched a lion under a tamarisk, waiting for the 
antelope to come browsing by, say there is no difference 
whatever between its tactics and those of Grimalkin 
when she lurks under a gooseberry bush for the casual 
robin. Another fact is that the lion is onl}^ bold in the 
dark. It becomes savage, of course, at all hours, if 
passers-by take the liberty of wounding it ;• but during 
the daytime and on moonlight nights it is, as a rule, so 
timid that travellers in the Lion-veldt of Africa never 
even trouble themselves to tether their wagon cattle. 
Yet this is the King of Beasts. 

In what, then, is it kingly? Certainly not in gene- 
rosit}^, nor jet in its habits. King^ do not go about 
catching rats and frogs and insects, nor in their own 
dominions do they skulk among the undergrowth when 
in search of a meal. Is it its size ? Certainly not ; for 
the elephant is its companion, and the lion never dares 
to cross the mammoth's path, confessing by its defer- 
ence a sense of superiority which other beasts, the lion's 
subjects, refuse to entertain — notably the tiger, the 
wild boar, and the rhinoceros. These three do not hes- 
itate to affront the elephant in broad dajdight, and cer- 
tainly would not turn tail for their ' ' king " if they met 
him. Is it then in its appearance that this animal 
claims to be royal among the quadrupeds ?• It is true 
that in repose — notably in the splendid bronzes of 
Trafalgar Square — there is a surpassing majesty in the 
lions' heads. They have the countenances of gods. 
Their manes sweep down upon their shoulders like the 
terrible hair of the Olj^mpian Zeus, and there is that in 
their eyes that speaks of a foreknowledge of things and 
of days, grand as fallen Saturn and implacable as the 
Sphinx. 



192 Unnatural History. 

But then this is in bronze. In Nature, only one half 
of the world's lions have any manes at all ; and even of 
these, the African species, there are but few, so travel- 
lers assure us, that reflect in any considerable degree 
the dignity of Landseer's effigies, while one writer speaks 
of " the blandness of his [the lion's] Harold Skimpole- 
like countenance ! " 

Yet, after all, if we dethrone the lion, which of the 
beasts shall wear the crown? The elephant is infinitely 
superior, both morally and physically ; but the ermine 
would hardly sit well upon the unwieldly pachyderm. 
The tiger is more courageous and as strong, but there is 
too much blood on its claws for a xoysl sceptre. Shall 
we giv.e the beasts a dictator in the violent rhinoceros, 
or raise them an emu* from the people by crowning the 
wild boar ? But why have a monarchy at all ? Let the 
quadrupeds be a republic. 

But the. suggestion is quite worthy of consideration, 
'Whether the modern ideal of the lion is not really due 
to a misconception of the object of our predecessors in 
making this animal so prominent. Originally, there is 
no doubt, the people fixed upon the lion as the king, 
not because he had any of the kingly virtues, but be- 
cause he had all the kingly vices. They satirized 
monarchy under this symbol. By endowing him with 
royalty they intended, therefore, to mark him out for 
public odium, and not for public reverence, just as in 
more modern days the wolf has stood in Ireland for 
the landlord. With this explanation as a key, all 
the fables and stories told of the lion, which hitherto 
have misled the popular mind as to the regal qualifi- 
cations of the lion, fall to pieces at once, and are seen 
to illustrate the failings and iniquities of the purple, 
and not its virtues or its grandeur. 



Cats and Sparrows. 193 

Take -<3Esop alone, and translate his fables by this 
light. The lion and the boar fight, and the match is an 
equal one — king against the people ; but seeing the 
vultures, a foreign enemy, on the lookout for the corpse 
of the vanquished, whichever it might happen to be, 
they make up their quarrel. ... A lion (the king) 
saw three bulls (his turbulent barons) pasturing to- 
gether, and he made them quarrel and separate, when 
he ate them up one after the other. ... A lion (the 
king's army) made an alliance with a dolphin (the king's 
navy) in order to have everything their own way, and 
then the lion tried to oppress a wild bull (his people) 
and got the worst of it, and the navy could not help 
him a bit. . . . Two kings, a lion and a bear, fall to 
fighting over a kid, and are at length so exhausted with 
the combat that a passing fox carries off the kid. ... 
A lion, an ass, and a fox went a-hunting, and on their 
return the king ordered the ass to apportion the spoil. 
The ass divided it carefully into three equal portions, 
which so enraged the lion that he devoured him on the 
spot, and ordered the fox to make a fresh partition. 
The fox put everything into one great heap as the 
king's half, and kept only an accidental fragment of 
offal for himself, upon which the lion commended his art 
in division, and asked him where he had learned it. 
"From the ass," replied the sj^cophant. ... A great 
king, a lion, asked a humble neighbor for a favor, which 
was granted on condition that the lion would dismiss his 
armed followers — have his teeth drawn, in fact ; and as 
soon as he had consented, the humble neighbor whipped 
the king off his premises. . . . The lion is represented 
as afraid of the crowing of the cock — the awaking of 
the people ; as putting himself to great trouble to catch 

13 



194 Unnatural History. 

a mouse that had annoyed him ; as the dupe of coun- 
cillors ; and as beiug constantlj^ overmatched by his 
subjects. 

These fables, therefore, and a hundred others, are not 
written to dignify the ro3"alty of the lion among the 
, beasts, but to depreciate royalt}' among men under the 
sj^mbol of a lion, — an animal^ that has a majestic as- 
pect and noble antecedents, but is both tyrannical and 
mean, mutton-headed and stealth3\ His friends are 
always the cunning, and his natural enemies the cour- 
ageous. The poets, however (of course) , entirely mis- 
understand these parables of antiquity, and, having often 
heard and read of the king of beasts, they invest the 
lion with all the insignia of monarchy. But the poets, 
until the nineteenth century, were as a class curiously 
and ludicrously ignorant of natural history, — - and more 
completely at discord with Nature generally, more 
unsympathetic, more imitative, and more incorrect, 
than could be supposed possible. So their champion- 
ship of the lion goes for nothing, unless we are content 
to accept all their fictions in a lump together, and to 
think of bears ravaging sheepfolds, baboons swinging 
by their tails, and vultures chasing turtle-doves. 

The travellers who seek a lion-slayer's fame are no 
less at fault, for the}" also misuse their facts. Other 
travellers on the same hunting-grounds have described 
the great cat to us too often to make the Bombastes 
Furioso of spurious adventures a realitj'. Instead of 
the huge beast standing erect on the plain in mid-da}^, 
and advancing with terrific roaring upon the hunter, 
every hair of the magnificent mane erect and the ej'es 
flashing fire, we are introduced to a sulky cat that trots 
away round the corner on the first warning of man's 



Cats and S^parrows. 195 

approach ; and which, so far from provoking conflict, 
takes advantage of ever}^ feature of the country that 
offers it concealment, or aflbrds it a way of escape from 
its dreaded persecutor. The Dutchmen in Africa have 
named the districts in which this animal ranges, the 
Lion-veldt, and this is a splendid compliment. But 
they regard the king of beasts as a pest, and do not 
fear it as a danger, while the natives reverence it as 
a voice^ and a terrible one, but prcEterea nihil. It was 
for this same majesty of voice that Ali the Caliph was 
named the Lion of Allah. In the " Pilgrim's Progress " 
it was the sound of the lions that first terrified Faithful 
and his party, for we are told it had ' ' a hollow voice of 
roaring ; " and it was the same roaring that frightened 
poor Thisbe to her death. Perhaps then, after all, it 
is with beasts as it is often with men, that he who roars 
loudest and oftenest is counted the best in the crowd, 
and that the lion's only claim to kingship is in the 
power of his lungs. If this be so, we can only saj^, 
with the duke in the play, " Well roared, lion ! " 

Another large cat is called the tiger. There is no 
nonsense about the tiger as there is about the lion. He 
is not an impostor. Wolves may go about pretending 
that they are only dogs that have had the misfortune of 
a bad bringing up, and the lion may swagger round 
trying to look as if he were something else than a cat ; 
but the tiger never descends to such prevarication, — 
setting himself up for better than he is, or claiming re- 
spect for qualities which he does not possess. There is 
no ambiguity about anything he does. . All his character 
is on the surface. " I am," he says, a " thorough going 
downright wild beast, and if you don't like me 3^ou maj^ 
lump me ; but in the mean while you had better get 



196 Unnatural History. 

out of my way." There is no pompous affectation of 
superior intelligence about the tiger, no straining after 
a false reputation for magnanimity. If he is met with 
in a jungle, he does not make-believe for the purpose of 
impressing the traveller with his uncommon sagacity, or 
waste tiine lilve the lion in superfluous roaring, shaking 
of manes, and looking kingly. On the contrary, he be- 
haves honestly and candidly, like the beast he is. He 
either retires precipitately with every confession of 
alarm, or, in his own fine outspoken fashion, goes for 
the stranger. Nor, when he makes off, does he do it as 
if he lilved it, wasting his time in pretentious attitudes, 
or in trying to save appearances. He has no idea of 
showing off. If he has to go he goes, like lightning, 
and does not think for a moment of the figure he is 
cutting. But if, on the other hand, he means fighting, 
he gives the stranger very little leisure for misunder- 
standing his intentions. The tiger, therefore, deserves 
to be considered a model wild beast, and to be held in 
respect accordingly. He knows his station and keeps 
it, doing the work that Nature has given him to do with 
all his might. 

The result of this honest}^ is that no one misrepresents 
the tiger. Exaggerated praise and slander are alike im- 
possible of an animal that refuses to be misjudged. 
There is no opening for dishonest description, for he is 
always in the same character ; no scope for romancing 
about a beast that is so consistently practical, or for fable 
when he does nothing in parables. Moreover, most of 
the other beasts play a second part in the world, and 
have a moral significance, — like the creatures grouped 
about Solomon's throne, or the standard-emblazonments 
of the tribes of Israel, or the armorial bearings of families 



Cats and Sparrows. 197 

and nations, or the badges of the Apostles. But no one 
uses the tiger in this way as a metaphor. There is not 
sufficiently sub tie t}'^ in the emblem. It is too coarse, too 
downright. A tiger is a tiger, and nothing more or less. 
Once only it was made a royal emblem, — by Tippoo, 
the Sultan of Mj^sore, — but then professedly out of mera 
brutal ferocity. In the same vein that amiable prince 
constructed a mechanical toy, now in the South Ken- 
sington collection, which represented a tiger, life-size, 
mumbling the body of an English soldier ; and when 
the machinery was in proper order, the tiger growled 
and the soldier groaned with considerable power. But 
Mr. John Bright, so they say, finding time heavy on his 
hands during the Sultan's ball, amused himself with 
Tippoo's toy, and by overwinding the machine, broke it. 
At any rate, the tiger goes through his growling per- 
formances now in a very perfunctory and feeble manner. 

For the same reason, namely, that the tiger affords 
no room for the play of fancy, the poets prefer leopards 
to tigers. There is more left to the imagination in the 
sound of the smaller animal's name, and as it is not so 
well known as the tiger, the}' have wider margin for 
poetical license. The morahst, for a similar reason, 
avoids the tiger, for no amount of ingenuity will extract 
a moral out of its conduct. 

In short, then, the tiger may be taken as the supreme 
type of the pure wild beast. Life has only one end for 
him — enjoj-ment ; and to this he gives all his magnificent 
energies. Endowed with superb capabihties, he exer- 
cises them to the utmost in this one direction, without 
ever forgetting for an instant that he is only a huge cat, 
or flying in the face of Nature by pretending to be any- 
thing else. 



198 Unnatural History. 

Speed, strength, and cunning are his in a degree to 
which, in the same combination, no other animal can lay 
claim ; in daring none exceed him, while for physical 
beaut}^ he has absolutely no rival. A tiger has been 
known to spring over a wall five feet high into a cattle 
enclosure, and to jump back again with a full-grown an- 
imal in its jaws ; and has been seen to leap, holding a 
bullock, across a wide ditch. As regards its speed, the 
first bounds of a tiger are so rapid as to bring it along- 
side the antelope ; while for strength, a single blow of 
its paw will stun a charging bull. Its stealth ma}' be 
illustrated by the anecdote of the tiger carrying away the 
bait while the sportsmen were actually busy putting up 
the shelters from which the}^ intended to shoot it when 
it came ; and its daring, by the fact that numbers do not 
appal it, that it will single out and carry off a man out of 
the middle of a party, and that it regularly helps itself 
to cattle in broad da^iight, in full sight of the herdsmen 
or the whole village. I have not gone for m^^ illustra- 
tions to any traveller's tale, but to records of Indian 
shikar that are absolutely beyond suspicion. To enable 
it to achieve such feats as these Nature has created in 
the tiger the very ideal_of brute symmetry and power. 
The paws, moreover, are fiited with large soft pads which 
enable this bulky animal to move without a rustle over 
ground where the lizard can hardty stir without being- 
heard ; while its coloring, though it seems conspicuous 
enough when seen in a cage behind bars and against a 
background of whitewash, assimilates with astonishing 
exactness to its surroundings when the tiger lies in 
ambush under the overhanging roots, or crouches 
amongst the cane-grass. 

For the tiger makes no pretence to invincible courage. 



Cats and Sparrows. 199 

On the contrary, he prefers, as a rule, to enjoy life rather 
than die heroically. When death is inevitable he is 
always heroic, or even when danger presses him too 
closely. But, if he can, he avoids the unequal contest 
between brute courage and explosive shells, and makes 
off at once for more sequestered woodlands, where he 
can reign supreme and be at ease. It is indeed a 
splendid Hfe that this autocrat of the jungle leads. The 
day commences for him as the sun begins to set, and he 
then stalks from his lair to drink at the neighboring 
pool, after which, his thirst slaked, he creeps out towards 
the glade where the deer are feeding. The vigilant, 
restless herd has need now for all its acuteness of ear 
and nostril, but it will certainly be unavailing, for the 
tiger is hungry, and, his prey once sighted, there is no 
gainsaying him . Using all the craft of his kind , the great 
cat steals upon his victims with consummate patience, 
and in such silence that even the deer have no suspicion 
how swiftly that stealthy death is approaching. It is hke 
being killed by a shadow or a ghost, for not a sound of 
moving leaf or breaking twig has given them warning ; 
and yet, all on a sudden, right in their midst it may be, 
there is an instant's swaying of the grass, and lo ! the 
. tiger. 

The next instant he is flying through the air in a ter- 
rific bound, and as the herd sweeps away down the 
glade, one of their number is left behind, and is already 
dead. 

The tyrant eats what he wants, and then strolls back 
into the jungle indolently and, so to speak, in good 
humor with all the world. We can then ima,gine him 
stalking a company of sambhur in fun, and afterwards 
see him standing up alone in the open space, laughing 



200 Unnatural History, 

grimly, shaking his sides at tlie joke, as the antlered 
creatures flj^ terrified before his form revealed ; or we 
may watch him insolently stretching himself in the full 
moonlight upon the ground near the favorite drinking 
pool, and daring all the beasts of the jungle to slake 
their thirst there so long as he remains. What strange 
wild scenes he must witness in the gray morning, as the 
world begins to wake up to life, and the night-feeding 
things go back to their lairs, with the bears shuffling 
along in good-humored company, the slinking wolves, 
and the careless trotting boars ; and the multitude of 
smaller creatures, furred and feathered, going out for 
the work of the day, or coming home tired with the 
work of the night. 

Nor is his life without brilliant episodes of excitement, 
for, apart from the keen triumphs that he enjoj's whenever 
he seeks his food, there are thrilling intervals in each 
recurring summer when the hunt is equipped for his de- 
struction, with all the pomp of marshalled elephants 
and an army of beaters. 

The heat of May has scorched up the covert and 
the water, except in a few pools where a fringe of vege- 
tation still lingers, and the tiger can still find a mid- day 
lair. Here the hunters seek him, and, whether we look 
at the quarr}^ they pursue or the picturesque surroundings 
of the da3^'s excitement, it must be confessed that tiger- 
shooting has no rival in all the range of sport. Even 
if no tiger is seen, if the elephant grass is beaten in 
vain, and the coverts of cane-clump and rustling reed 
are drawn without a glimpse of the great striped beast, 
there is such a multitude of incidents in the day's 
adventure that it is never a blank. As the drive 
comes on towards the ambushed rifles, the park-like 



Cats and Sparrows. 201 

glades that stretch away to right and left are never 
wantmg in animal life. The pea-fowl and the wild pig, 
the partridges and grouse of several kinds, are all afoot, 
hurraing along before the advancing line. The jackals 
sneak from brake to brake, and, pacing out of the jungle 
that marks the watercourse, come the swamp deer and 
the noble sambhur. Here a wolf breaks cover sullenly, 
looking back over his shoulder as he goes, in the direc- 
tion of the shouting beaters. There a bear goes b^^, com- 
plaining of his rest disturbed. The monkey-folk come 
swinging along in a tumult of the foliage overhead, and 
small creatures of the civet kind, with an occasional hare 
or wildcat, slip by, all wondering at the uproar, but all 
unmolested alike. For the honor of death is reserved 
to-day for the tiger onl}^, and he, as a rule, is the last of 
all the denizens of the jungle to allow his repose to be 
broken, or to confess that he is alarmed. But even he 
has eventually to admit that this advancing line of noisy 
men means danger, and so he retires before them, creep- 
ing from clump to clump with consummate skill. ' Yet 
the swaj'ing 'tassels of the tall plumed grass betray his 
moving, and on a sudden he finds himself in the ambush 
laid for him, and from the tree above him or from some 
overhanging rock the sharp cracks of the rifle proclaim 
that the t3Tant of the jungle is dead. 

When the tiger is followed up with elephants, fresh 
elements of adventure and picturesqueness are added to 
the day's sport — but the theme is an old one. The 
fact, however, remains that whatever the method em- 
ployed for encompassing his death, or wherever he may 
be found, the tiger proves himself a splendid beast. 
If he can, he will avoid the unfair contest with bullet 
and shell; but let him only have his chance and he 



202 Unnatural History. 

shows both man and elephant how ro3^all3^ he can de- 
fend his jungle realm against them. 

His voice, it has been contended, is not regal. To 
dispute this one has only to go to any menagerie, 
where, though the lion's roar may be the loudest, the 
tiger's is not less terrific. Nor when he is heard roam- 
ing abroad in the jungles in the night can anything be 
imagined more terribly weird or unnatural than his 
utterances. 

He has found, perhaps, that a pack of wild dogs — 
voiceless hunters of the forest — are crossing his path ; 
and his angry protest, delivered in rapid, startling 
coughs, is certainty among the most terrifjing sounds of 
Nature, while nothing can surpass the utter desolation 
that seems to possess the night when the tiger passes 
along the jungle to his lair, with his long-drawn, whining 
yawn. The lion's roar is, of course, unapproachable in 
its grandeur, but the tiger compresses into a cough and 
a 3^awn such an infinit}^ of cruelty and rage, such un- 
fathomable depths of fierce wild-beast nature as cannot 
be matched in forest languages. 

Man-eating tigers and, even more, man-eating ti- 
gresses have always commanded among human beings 
a certain awful respect. Nor is this to be wondered at 
in India, when each year's returns tell us that about 
a thousand persons perish annually by these brutes. 
When, therefore, to the word " tiger" — itself a s3^no- 
nym in every language, civilized or savage, for stealth}^, 
cruel, strong-limbed ferocity — is prefixed the aggravat- 
ing epithet of " man-eating," the imagination prepares 
itself for the worst, and the ^reat carnivore stalks iDast, 
in the mind's eyes, a verj^ compendium of horrors, bear- 
ing about with it on its striped hide a Newgate Calendar 



Cats and Sparroivs. 203 



of its many iniquities. But is it not just possible that 
the sensitiveness of humanity with regard to itself and 
all that pertains to its own security and dignity may 
have exaggerated the terrors of the man-eater? A 
lion-eating tiger would in reality be quite as fearful a 
thing as one that, with toothless jaws and unnerved 
limbs, falls upon miserable men and women ; but a lion- 
eating tiger would not be considered an abominable 
monster. We should speak of it as a wise dispensation 
of nature for keeping the equilibrium among the carni- 
vora, as a respectable and commendable beast that 
apologized for and justified its own existence by killing 
something else as noxious as itself; just as the cock- 
roach has retained some shreds of reputation b}" eating- 
mosquitoes. But alas for the tiger! the day comes 
when the wretched animal is so ill-conditioned that its 
kith and kin will not admit its relationship, and drive it 
forth ; so feeble that the wild pig turns upon it and 
mocks it ; so slow of foot that everything escapes from 
it ; so old that its teeth fall out and its claws splinter ; 
and, in this pitiful state, it has to go far afield for 
food. It has to leave the jungles it has lorded it over 
for so many j^ears ; the pleasant pools to which, in the 
evening, the doomed stag used to lead his hinds to 
water ; the great beds of reed and grass in which, 
lazily basking, it heard the thoughtless buffaloes come 
grazing to their fate, crushing down the tall herbage as 
the}^ sauntered on ; the deep coverts of bamboo and 
undergrowth where the njdghai reposed his unwieldy 
bulk ; the gi'and rock-strewn lair, whither he and his 
tigress used to drag the carcasses that were to feed 
their cubs. 

But where is he to go in his old age ? He must eat 



204 Unnatural History. 

to live, but what hope is there for such as he to earn 
an honest meal? With the best intentions possible, no 
one would believe him. His mere appearance in a 
village suffices to empty it of all but the bedridden. 
What is he to do ? If the head men of the village would 
only stay and hear what he had to say, the tiger, it 
ma}" be, would explain his conduct satisfactorily, and 
thenceforward might go decentl}^, like any other hungry 
wretch, from hamlet to hamlet, with a begging-dish in 
his mouth. 

Here, again, society is against him. In India the 
people do not eat meat, not enough of it, at any rate, 
to satisfy a tiger on their leavings ; and to offer an 
empty tiger parched grain and vegetable marrows, where- 
with to fill itself, is to mock the animal and to trifle with 
its tenderest feelings. So the tiger, despairing of assist- 
ance or even sympathy, looks about him in the deserted 
village, and, finding an old bedridden female in a hut, 
helps himself to her and goes away, annoj^ed, no doubt, 
at her toughness, but all the same, poor easy beast, 
glad of the meal. 

Perhaps it is such a one as this that was caught not 
long ago by an old native in India, in a pit. A man- 
eating tiger that would fall into a pit could hardly have 
been in the enjoyment of the full complement of its 
senses ; and when, having tumbled like a sack of pota- 
toes into the hole, we hear that it did not jump out 
again, but permitted itself to be tied up and carted 
away, we must confess that something of the awesome 
terrors attaching by tradition to the anthropophagous 
cat fall away from it. An average sheep would have 
behaved with more spirit. 

Meanwhile, it does not detract from the gallantry of 



Cats and Sparrows. 205' 

the capture, or the originality of the conception, that 
the tiger should have behaved so tamely. For the na- 
tive, there can be only one 'feeling of respectful admira- 
tion. It would not occur to every one to dig a hole 
for a tiger, and sit by with a rope. But the capture, 
ridiculous as it was, has had some precedents, for the 
terror of the jungles has often, from pure rashness, 
stumbled into ridiculous positions with fatal consequen- 
ces. Whether it is true that two British sailors once 
caught a tiger by tempting him into a barrel, and then, 
having pulled his tail through the bung-hole, tying a 
knot in it, I do not undertake to decide. But that a 
tiger has been taken prisoner in a blanket is beyond 
dispute ; as also that a tiger, having thrust its head 
through a wicker crate which was filled with ducks, 
could not withdraw it, and in this ignominious plight, 
with the ducks making a prodigious noise all the while, 
blundered about the camp until, getting among the 
horses, it was kicked to death. Tigers have choked 
themselves by trying to swallow frogs, and in single 
combat with smaller animals been shamefull}^ defeated. 
Thus a man-eating tiger of immense proportions, 
at one time the pride of the Calcutta collection, was 
killed under circumstances that covered it with ridicule. 
It happened that a fighting ram belonging to a soldier 
in one of the regiments cantoned in the neighborhood, 
became so extremety troublesome that the colonel 
ordered it to be sent to the Zoological Gardens. Yet 
. there it was as troublesome as ever, and being no curi- 
osit}^, though excellent mutton, it was decided to give 
it to the great tiger. So ferocious was this creature 
supposed to be that it had a specially constructed cage, 
and its food was let down through a sliding grating in 



206 Unnatural History. 

the roof. Down this, accordingly^, the ram was lowered. 
The tiger was dozing in the corner, but when it saw 
the mutton descend, it rose and, after a long sleepy 
yawn, began to stretch itself. Meanwhile, the ram, 
who had no notion that he had been put there to be 
eaten, was watching the monster's laz}^ preparations for 
his meal with the ej'e of an old gladiator, and, seeing the 
tiger stretch himself, supposed the fight was commenc- 
ing. Accordingly he stepped nimbly back to the farthest 
corner of the stage, just as the tiger, of course, all 
along expected he would do, — and then, which the 
tiger had not in the least expected^ put down his head 
and went straight at the striped beast. The old tiger 
had not a chance from the first, and as there was no 
waj" of getting the ram out again, the agonized owners 
had to look on while the sheep killed the tiger ! 

Nor are such instances at all uncommon. Old cows 
have gored them, village dogs have worried them, 
horses have kicked their ribs to fragments, and even 
man himself, the proper lawful food of the man-eating 
tiger, has turned upon his consumer, and beaten him off 
with a stick. When a tiger can thus be set at naught by 
his supper, he hardly deserves all the reverent admira- 
tion with which tradition and storj^-books have invested 
him, and which an untravelled pubUc has superstitiously 
entertained towards him. 

" Generally speaking," says Dr. Jerdon, a great 
authority on Indian zoology, " the Bengal tiger is a 
harmless, timid animal. When once it takes to killing 
man it almost alwaj^s perseveres in its endeavors to 
procure the same food ; and, in general, it has been 
found that very old tigers, whose teeth are blunted or 
gone, and whose strength has failed, are those that 
relish human food, finding an easy prey." 



Cats and Sparrows. 207 

Now, I would contend, there is no malignity here. 
The picture, indeed, is a pathetic one. Content, so long 
as it had good e^'esight and sound teeth, to hunt wild 
beasts, the tiger, at an age when comfort and idleness 
should have been its lot, is compelled, poor wretch, to 
quit its natural haunts for the highwaj's of men and 
their habitations. Its life becomes now a terror to it- 
self; and the very quest for food is no longer the 
supreme pleasure it was in the days when it flashed like 
a streak of flame from its ambush upon the stately 
sambhur — or stalked with consummate skill the wary 
bison, and then plunging upon the great beast, bore it 
to the ground by the terrific impetus of its spring, and 
stunned it into beef with one tremendous blow. In 
those strong, fierce days, its roar silenced the many- 
voiced jungle ; but now, as it creeps among the growing 
crops, or lurks in the shadow of the village wall, it has 
to hold its breath, lest a sound should betray it into 
danger. For everjthing is now a peril to it, even a 
company of unarmed men, or a pack of village curs, or 
a herd of kine. So it lays its helpless old body close 
along the ditch, where some weeds suffice to hide its 
terror-striking appearance, once its pride but now its 
ruin, and waits hy the pathway for some returning 
villager, man, woman, or child, some belated goat or 
wandering calf. To be sure of its dinner it must be 
certain there will be no resistance, and every meal 
is, therefore, snatched with anxietj^ and fear. To such 
a life of degradation and shame <loes the splendid quad- 
ruped descend in toothless old age ! 

The lesser carnivora, as they are called, play a very 
important part in the political system of the beasts. 



208 Unnatural History. 

They are the great feudatory princes and independent 
barons of the wild world. 

Claiming kinship with royalty, thej^ possess within 
their respective earldoms all the privileges of inde- 
pendent sovereigns and the powers of life and death. 
At the head of fierce clans they defj^ the central author- 
ity, and retiring within their own demesnes maintain 
there almost regal state. Such are the pumu, jaguar, 
leopard, and panther. 

The puma, indeed, calls itself the lion in South 
America ; the leopard, the tiger among the Zulus and 
throughout South Africa ; and the panther is the tiger 
of Ceylon. But of these four furred princes, the jaguar 
rises most nearly to the standard of roj^altj^, and it is 
certainl}', both in appearance and the circumstances of 
its life, a splendid cat. 

Unaccustomed to being annoyed, travellers see him 
in broad daylight lying stretched out at full length on 
the soft turf, under the shade of some Amazonian tree, 
thoroughly careless of danger, because so completelj^ 
unused to being attacked. The explorer's boat passing 
along the river does not make him do more than raise 
his head, for the river is not in his own domain. It be- 
longs to the caj^man and the manatee, and it is their 
business, not his, to see to the boat. Wherever he goes 
animal life is so abundant ^that he finds no trouble in 
securing food, and, like the negroes of the Seychelles, 
he grows, from pure laziness and full feeding, sleek, 
large-limbed and heavj^. His coat becomes strangelj^ 
glossy, soft and close ; the colors on it deepen and grow 
rich in sumptuous shades of velvety chestnut, brown and 
black ; his limbs thicken, his body plumps out, and his 
jaws assume the full sensual contour characteristic of 



Cats and Sparrows. 209 

tropical man. He moves along with a lounging gait, 
often resting as he goes ; and his ej'es, as he turns his 
head incuriouslj^ to this side or to that, are large and soft 
and lustrous ; while his voice, when he takes the trouble 
to warn away any incautious peccary or indiscreet cap}- 
bara, is rich and low in tone. In ever}^ aspect, in fact, 
the jaguar presents himself to the mind as a pampered 
child of Nature, the representative in the beast world of 
the Creole and negro of the Seychelles. In those won- 
drous islands the black man spends his day in utter idle- 
ness, lying on the white sea-beach or under the bread- 
fruit trees, smokiug the cigars his wife makes, watching 
the big fish chasing the little ones in the lagoon, or his 
fowls scratching among the wild melon beds. When he 
is hungry his wife goes down to the sea and catches a 
fish, one of his children plucks a pile of plantains and 
shakes down the green cocoanuts ; and thus, indolent 
and full fed, he grows, like the jaguar, sleek and strong, 
with glossy skin and huge limbs. 

The puma is a companion of the jaguar, but the}' sel- 
dom meet, for mutual respect defines for them their re- 
spective domains, and neither cares to trespass on the 
other. Nature has been equally kind to both, but the 
puma is of a restless temperament, and neither the 
abundance of food nor the temptations of the Brazils to 
idleness are enough to damp its energy. There is 
something of the immigrant and colonist about it. It is 
perpetually in quest of adventure or work to do, climb- 
ing about among the interwoven foliage, or prowhng 
among the brushwood of more open countr}^ Its one 
great object in life seems to be the chase, for the sport's 
sake, for it kills far more than it can ever eat, and often 
indeed does not attempt to consume its prey. This has 

14 



210 Unnatural History. 

given the puma a character for ferocity in works of 
natural history which its appearance in a cage would 
hardl}^ justify', for its comfortable fur and sleek limbs 
might be thought to belong to a gentler creature. 

The leopard and panther are to the east what the 
jaguar and puma are to the west ; and their lives, whether 
we consider the kindliness of Nature to them or their 
strange immunity from harm, are equall3\to be envied. 
They live, it is true, within the empire of the tiger, but 
only, as in the daj-s of the Heptarchy, the Mercian or 
the Northumbrian prince would have called himself 
within the realm of the Bretwalda ; or as, in the early 
days of France, the dukes of Soissons or of Burgundy 
were subject to Paris ; or, earlier still, only as Acar- 
nania or Locris confessed the hegemonj' of Sparta. 
There is respect on both sides, and therefore a large 
measure of peace within the earldoms and duchies of 
the big cats. 

The domesticated cat is an animal that can be best 
approached sideways. Direct description, that is to 
say, does not bring out its peculiarities quite so well as 
the oblique form, which throws slanting lights upon the 
subject. To illustrate my meaning, let us take that 
frivolous proposition of the French to impose a tax 
upon cats ; and following it out, note how the character 
of the animal develops itself by incidence. 

How the tax is to be collected no senator ventured to 
explain, and when the project comes to the touchstone 
of practice we ma}' confident^ expect it to fall through. 
For the difficulties in the wa}^ of the collection of such a 
tax are immense. It is true they are not all on the sur- 
face, and so the impost may at the first glance pass as 



Cats and Sparrows. 211 

plausible ; but, in realitj' , it would be hardly less easy 
to assess the householder on the mice that might infest 
his kitchen, or the sparrows that hop about on his win- 
dow-sill, than upon the vagabond grimalkins that may 
choose to " squat " upon his premises. Putting on one 
side, however, the fact that both the social and the do- 
mestic sj'stems would be shaken to their foundations by 
the exaction of such a duty, — that every cook would be 
set in opposition to her master b}' being called upon to 
pay the tax or dismiss her cat, — there remains this one 
great difficulty to a successful collection of a tax on cats, 
that no one would pa}' it. Some few eccentric persons — 
those, for instance, who pay "conscience money" — 
would, no doubt, come forward to be mulcted, but the 
vast majority of ratepa3'ers would- simply disclaim pos- 
session of cats, and throw the onus of proof upon the 
rate-collectors. " My cat ! " the landlady would say to 
him, feigning astonishment, " Bless 3'ou, that's not my 
cat ! It came in quite promiscuous one night, and I 
have been trying ever since to drive it away. If you 
don 't believe me, sir, 3'OU can take it away with you 
now." 

Under the circumstances, what could a collector, with 
ordinary human feelings, say or do? Is he to throw 
discredit upon a respectable person's statement, — sup- 
ported, moreover, by her unmistakable sincerit}" in offer- 
ing the cat there and then to the representative of Gov- 
ernment, — by assessing her in spite of her protests ? 

Moreover, if the landlady, before his very eyes, should 
proceed to hunt the cat out of her parlor, should, far- 
ther, chase it downstairs into the kitchen with a duster, 
thence through the scullery into the back garden, and, 
not content with that, pursue it even to the uttermost 



212 Unnatural History. 

angle of the garden wall, so that it should be entirely off 
her premises, the collector's position would be greatly 
aggravated ; for what more could a person do than this 
to prove that there was no conspiracy in the matter, no 
attempt at fraudulent evasion of a legal demand ? It is 
true that, if she were of a nimble kind, the landlady 
might prosecute her chase even farther, and not desist 
until she had seen pussy fairly out of the ward ; but it 
surely has not come to this, in a free country too, that 
elderly ladies must satisfy tax-collectors by such vio- 
lent exercise, to the detriment of their domestic and 
other duties ; or, because a minion of the law insists 
upon it that wherever a cat is to be found there it is to 
be taxed, that females of all ages, delicately nurtured it 
may be, or otherwise incapacitated from rapid pursuit 
of animals, are to be set running about the streets and 
climbing trees, in order to rid themselves of importu- 
nate cats ! The idea is preposterous. 

Here, indeed, I have touched the very heart of the 
difficult}", for a cat does not of necessity belong to the 
place where she is found. Cats, in fact, belong to 
nowhere in particular. They are called domestic, I 
know, but they are reall}^ not so at all. They come in- 
side houses for warmth, and because saucers with milk 
in them are more often found in houses than on garden 
walls, or in the roads, or up in trees ; because street 
boys do not go about throwing stones in houses, and 
because there are no idle dogs there, looking round cor- 
ners for something to hunt. 

Besides, when it rains it is dry inside a house, as 
compared with out of doors, and sleep can be more 
comfortably arrived at in the daytime under a kitchen 
dresser than in such exposed and draughty spots as the 



Cats and Sjparrows. 213 

roofs of outhouses or under the bushes in the garden of 
the square. The cat, therefore, comes into our midst 
from motives of pure self-interest alone, joins the do- 
mestic circle simplj^ for the sake of the comforts it 
affords her, and seats herself upon our particular hearth 
and home only because she finds herself warm there, 
and safe. 

But at heart she is a vagabond, a tramp, and a gypsy. 
She is always "on the patter." Our dwelling-places 
are really only so many casual wards to her, and she 
looks upon the basement floor of our houses as a fortui- 
tous but convenient combination of a soup-kitchen and 
a lying-in hospital. When homeless she does not drown 
herself in despair, or go and buy poison from a chemist 
and kill herself. On the contrary, she avoids water 
with all the precaution possible, even so much as a pud- 
dle on the pavement,, and carefully sniffs everything she 
sees lying about before she thinks of trying to eat it. 

Nor does she, in desperation, go and steal something 
off a stall, in order to get locked up in shelter for the 
night, for she has instincts that teach her to avoid the 
coarse expedients with which homeless and starving 
humanity has so often to make such pathetic shift. The 
cat's plan is the simplest possible. She merely walks 
along the street as far as the first house, and, to guard 
against passing dogs, puts herself at once on the right 
side of the railings. Here she sits until the back-door 
opens, and as soon as she sees a domestic coming out 
she mews plaintively. If the domestic says shoo to her, 
she shoos at once, for she understands that there is 
one cat already in the house. But she only goes next 
door, and there repeats her manoeuvre. The odds are 
that the next kitchen-maid does not say shoo to her, 



214 Unnatural History. 

but only calls out to somebody else inside, " Here's a 
cat on the steps, a-mewing like anything." The ad- 
venturer, meanwhile, has got up and, still mewing, rubs 
herself suggestively on the post, arching up her back 
and leaning very much on one side — to show, no doubt, 
that she has no other visible means of support. The 
kitchen-maid duly reports the cat's proceedings, and 
some original-minded domestic at once hazards the sug- 
gestion that "the poor thing has lost hisself." This 
bold hypothesis is at once accepted as satisfying all the 
conditions of the problem, and ultimately, from one 
guileful gesture to another, the cat is found at last rub- 
bing herself — still very much out of the perpendicular 
and still mewing — against the cook's skirts in front of 
the kitchen fire. 

A cat has as keen an instinct for a cook as a policeman 
has, and makes straight for her. A strange dog, they 
sa}', will find out the master of a house at once, and im- 
mediately attach itself to him. The cat, however, does 
not trouble herself about such superficial differences of 
position as these, but goes without hesitation to the great 
dispenser of creature comforts, the cooh. Masters, she 
sa3^s, are untrustworthy ; they come and go, and in 
some houses do not even exist at all ; but the kitchen fire 
is a fixed star, and the cook a satellite that may always 
be depended upon to be found revolving in her proper 
orbit. She attaches herself, therefore, to this important 
domestic at once, and forthwith becomes our cat. 

Yet she is only our cat as distinguished from the 
cat next door. In no other sense is she ours at all. 
The chances are that the master of the house does not 
even know that there is such an animal on the establish- 
ment. Upon one occasion, certainly, he remembers 



Cats and Sparrows. 215 

rudely expelling a cat, more in anger than in sorrow, 
wMch he found in the library ; but he had no idea, prob- 
ably, when he had it raked out from under the furniture, 
that it was a pensioner of his household, and a recog- 
nized retainer. Now, how can such a man be called 
upon to pay a tax on a cat? The animal, b}^ every one's 
confession, quartered itself b}^ guile upon the premises, 
and belongs to nobody. The cook says it can go 
(for she knows ver}^ well that it will immediately come 
back again), and even the tax-collector could hardty, 
under the circumstances of a general disclaimer, persist 
in assessing the little animal. As I have alreadj^ pointed 
out, therefore, the presence of a cat in a house does not 
imply ownership in the householder, for it would be just 
as fair to infer from the presence of a tea-party of cats 
in a back yard that ihQj all belonged to the contiguous 
house. A cat is at home nowhere, for she makes her- 
self at home everywhere. All workhouses are much the 
same to paupers. It is very difficult, therefore, to see 
how the collector will collect his tax. His alternatives 
will be equally disagreeable, for he must either refuse to 
believe what he is told on oath hy every person he calls 
upon, or else he must remove the cats. For this purpose 
he would have to go about accompanied by some con- 
veyance not smaller in size than a train-car, for any 
ordinary Square in the suburbs would supply enough 
cats to fill a large vehicle. And when he has got them, 
what will he do with them ? Cats cannot be impounded 
— except in a well, and even then it would be necessary 
to keep the lid down ; nor would it be permissible in 
these days of advanced humanity to destroy them by 
cremation as if they were so much condemned stores ; 
nor could they be served out to the parochial author- 



216 Unnatural History. 

ities for the sustenance of the aged poor. No decent 
person would consent to be a pauper and to Uve in a 
workhouse under conditions that involved cat soup. 
The question, in fact, is beset with immense difficul- 
ties ; for one of two things must happen wherever the 
tax-collector calls, — either injustice must be perpetrated 
upon the householder, or the law be brought into con- 
tempt. Now, if some plan could be devised for ascer- 
taining precisely whose cats thej^ are that always pass 
the nights in such melancholy hilarity in their neighbors' 
gardens, and if these particular cats could be either 
heavily taxed or carted off — say, to the Canadian fron- 
tier — Government, I feel sure, and I speak for myself 
at all events, might depend upon the hearty co-opera- 
tion of the public. As the project stands at present, 
however, a universal cat- tax appears to me impossible. 
As another sidelong illustration of cat character, let 
us take the case of the gentleman found looking for a lost 
cat at one in the morning in a neighbor's till, — a pro- 
ceeding which may be called, at anj^ rate, curious. 
Whether he was really doing so or not, the magistrate 
before whom the case came had to decide for himself. 
The narrative itself is sufficient for my present purpose. 
Mr. James Cartwright, aged twenty-one, was charged, in 
a London police-court, with breaking into a rag-dealer's 
house at midnight, and stealing a gold mourning ring 
and twentj^-six shillings, for after an exciting chase over 
the roofs of several outbuildings he had been caught, and 
the stolen propert}^ above referred to was found upon 
him. Mr. Cartwright, in explanation of his position, 
said that he was looking for a cat which he had lost. 
The simplicity of the defence is charming, and the 
readiness with which it was offered no less admirable, 



Cats and Sparrows. 217 

for it is one of the virtues of thought that it should be 
rapid, and one of the essentials in a hj'pothesis that it 
should be simple. Mr. Cartwriglit's mind must have 
flashed to its decision on the instant, and the only 
hypothesis that could possibly have covered all the 
suspicious circumstances — the hour of his capture, the 
position on the roof of an outbuilding, the headlong 
scramble over adjoining premises — was at once off his 
tongue. He was looking for a cat. 

What more natural, he would ask, than that puss 
should have gone out at night, should have been on the 
roof of an out-building, and should have tried to elude 
capture by hasty flight over other roofs? Mr. Cart- 
wright, no doubt, was much attached to his httle friend 
— I can hardly call a cat a dumb companion — and 
having missed it from the hearth, braved the discom- 
forts of the night air by going forth to seek it in its 
favorite haunts, which with cats are always a neighbor's 
premises. Failing to see it at the first cursory glance, 
he determined to go farther, but apprehending resistance 
from the cat, he armed himself with an iron bar which a 
neighboring rag-dealer used for securing a side-door, 
and, the door happening to open, Mr. Cartwright, 
naturally enough, went into the house to look for his 
pet. In his pathetic anxiety he searched every place, 
whether probable or improbable — and eventually the 
till. 

The sight of the money in it probably suggested to 
him the feasibiUty of bribing the cat to return, and he 
took sufficient for the purpose — twenty-six shillings — 
and in his then forlorn and disconsolate condition the 
mourning ring naturally occurred to him as an appro- 
priate and becoming possession. Had he found the cat 



218 Unnatural History. 

he would, no doubt, have restored the ring and the 
mone}' too, and mended the door as well ; but, unfortu- 
nately, before his object was accomplished, and at the 
moment of hottest pursuit after the vagabond animal, he 
was himself captured, and, the -circumstances looking 
suspicious (which it must be candidty admitted they 
did) , he was taken up and committed for trial. 

Looking for a cat at night requires good eyes, and 
might have been safely given to Hercules as an ad- 
ditional labor. For the cat is of an evasive kind. Its 
person is so inconsiderable that small holes suffice for 
its entrances and its exits, while a ver}^ trifling patch of 
shadow is enough to conceal a whole soiree of cats. Its 
feet, again, are so admirabl}^ padded that it makes no 
noise as it goes, and having been born to habits of sud- 
den and silent escape, it vanishes from the vision like a 
whiff of mist. Terrier dogs think the cat a mean ani- 
mal, and they have some reason on their side, for the 
cat never scruples to profit b}^ every possible advantage 
which nature or accident may offer. Not content with 
having actuall}^ escaped, it perches itself comfortably 
upon a branch or roof just out of the pursuer's reach ; 
and while the latter, frantic with tantalizing hope^, is 
dancing on its hind legs beneath it, the cat pretends to go 
to sleep, and blinks blandly upon the gradually despond- 
ing acrobat. Grimalkin has always this nice conscious- 
ness of safety, and does only just sufficient to secure it, 
enjoying for the rest the pleasure of watching its 
baffled adversary. Instead of disappearing altogether 
from sight through the kitchen window, the cat is con- 
tent with squeezing through the area railings, and sit- 
ing on the window-sill in full view of the demented 
terrier, who can only thrust half his head through the 



Cats and Sparroius. 219 

bars, and stands there whimpering — " for the touch of 
a vanished cat and the sound of a puss that is still." 

There is one more charge against the cat, that, 
though well cared for and well fed, she affects a home- 
less condition and, going out on the pantiles, fore- 
gathers with other vagabonds of her kind, and in their 
company indulges in the music of the future, ex- 
pressive of many mixed emotions, but irregular and 
depressing. 

Cats seem saddest when they trespass. At home they 
are silent, but entering a neighbor's premises they at 
once commence to confide their sorrows to the whole 
parish in melancholy dialogue, which in the morning are 
found to have been accompanied by violent saltations 
upon the flower-beds. . Altogether, therefore, the cat 
out at night is one who deserves to be caught, and Mr. 
James Cartwright certainly had my sympathies in the 
object of his search. But for the means he employed to 
catch the cat it is impossible to entertain more than a 
very indifferent degree of respect. In the first place, 
he might have looked for his cat before one in the morn- 
ing, which is an unconscionable hour to go running over 
the roofs of neighbors' outhouses. Nor in his search 
need he have wrenched off the iron bar which closed the 
rag-dealer's door, for it is not in evidence that his cat 
was of any extraordinary^ ferocity or proportions re- 
quiring so formidable a weapon of capture ; nor, again, 
need he have looked in the till for his cat. Landladies' 
cats, it is notorious, go into remarkable places, and 
sometimes demean themselves in a manner quite sur- 
prising in such small animals ; for they will play on the 
lodger's piano with dirty fingers, tr}^ on the lodger's 
bonnets, and eat prodigious quantities of the lodger's 



220 Unnatural History. 

dessert, after taking the key of the chiffonniere oat of the 
pocket of the dress that was hanging in the wardrobe in 
the bedroom. Mr. Cartwright's cat, however, does not 
appear to have been of this kind, and, unless its master 
meant to bribe the cat to return to him, all other 
methods failing, I do not see why he should have taken 
the twenty-six shillings. The mourning ring is more 
comprehensible, perhaps ; but, on the whole, there was 
a doubtful complexion about that cat-hunt which cer- 
tainly justified the severe view which the magistrate 
took. 

The proper food of the cat, the common or garden 
cat, is the sparrow (Spar. Britannicus) . The sparrow's 
favorite food is your garden seeds. When he sees you 
at work the ingenuous bird survej's yowr operations, and, 
pleased with the liberal feast prepared, informs his 
friends of the fact. As a rule they accept his invitation 
cordiall3^ The diligence of the sparrow in eating what 
does not belong to him is very remarkable, and no- 
where more conspicuous than in the back garden. Sit- 
ting on the spouts or chimney-pots of the houses round, 
he remarks all that goes on beneath, makes a note of 
the cat that has just gone, under the currant bush at No. 
25, and ponders at the top of his voice on the pro- 
ceedings of the inhabitants of the row generally. Satis- 
fied that seed-sowing is in progress in one of the 
gardens, he descends, and having collected his friends, 
remains with them upon the scene of operations, indus- 
trious to the last. 

With one little black eye applied close to the surface 
of the soil, and the other doing general duty by keeping 
a watch upon the overlooking windows, whence sudden 
missiles might issue, he continues his patient but cheerful 



Cats and Sparrows. 221 

scrutiny until certain that nothing remains. It is of no 
use tr3ing to tempt him from the larcenous repast \)j the 
exhibition of honest viands upon the adjoining path ; for 
he knows, perhaps, that the bread will wait for him, but 
that if he does not eat the seed at once it will be 
grown be^^ond his powers of digestion. When he has 
nothing else to do, he will make fun of the crumbled 
loaf ; will provoke his acquaintances to chase him by fly- 
ing off with the largest lump ; will play at prisoner's base 
with it, or drop it down gratings ; will carrj' it up to the 
roof of a house and lose it down a spout ; will do an}^- 
thing with it, in fact, but eat it in a proper and thankful 
manner. 

The back-garden sparrow, indeed, is a fowl of very 
loose morality, but his habits of life have so sharpened 
his intelligence that the cats find it as difficult to catch 
him as the policemen do the urchins of the streets. 
Rustic sparrows, country-bumpkin birds, fall clumsily 
into the snares of the village tabbj", but in the back gar- 
dens of urban districts the cat very seldom indeed brings 
the birds to bag. It is not that the quadruped has lost 
her taste for sparrows, or that she has forgotten all her 
cunning, for now that the shrubs are in leaf, and afford 
her convenient ambuscade, she may be seen on any 
sunny morning practising her old wild-life arts in order 
to circumvent the wily sparrow. But domestication 
blunts the feline intelligence, and after a long residence 
in kitchens, and daily familiarities with milkmen, the 
spell of civilization and its humdrum waj's of life falls 
upon her, and, though she may hunt for sport, the com- 
fortable assurance of a saucer daily replenished dulls 
her enthusiasm for strange meats ; and, without forget- 
ting that the sparrow is toothsome, she remembers more 
than she used to do that the sparrow is also nimble. 



222 Unnatural History. 

I have observed that the controversy as to whether 
sparrows are blessings or otherwise to the farmer, and 
whether, in these days of bad harvests, when almost 
every grain of corn is precious, the little birds should 
be encouraged or exterminated, is one that is regularl}^ 
revived. 

' All the poets have formally denounced the sparrow, 
"the meanest of the feathered race," and how shall 
any one be found to speak well of him? The best that 
can be said in the defence of the familiar little fowl is 
ver}' bad indeed, for no criminal code that yet exists 
would suffice to exhaust the calendar of his crimes and 
convict him for all his offences. Not only does the 
sparrow despise police regulations and make sport of 
by-laws, but he affronts all our standards of ethics, 
public morahty, and rehgion. In a church he behaves 
with no more decorum than in a court of justice, and 
whether in the pulpit or the dock betrays an unseemly 
levit}' that will require the utmost extension of the Ar- 
minian doctrines of universal grace to compass his sal- 
vation. He is the street boy among birds, and his 
affronts are gratuitous and unprovoked. It is of no 
use to retort upon him, or threaten him with the law. 
The water-pipe suffices as an answer to every repartee, 
be it a gibe or a menace ; and when a sparrow has 
hopped up a long spout, who would care to bandy argu- 
ments with him? Impervious to the batter}^ of exhorta- 
tion, he perches on the window-sill, invulnerable to the 
most formidable assaults of reason or the most ferocious 
onsets of sarcasm, and thoroughly comprehends upon 
which side of the glass he sits. Pelt him with hard 
names, and he only chirps monotonously ; but if you 
throw a stone at him, you must pay for the damages. 



Cats and Sparrows. 223 

The sparrow carries no purse, for he steals all he 
wants ; and his name is in no director}^, for he lives 
everywhere. His address is the world, and when chang- 
ing his residence he apprises no one. There is no city 
whose freedom he has not conferred upon himself, and 
no corporation whose privileges he does not habitually 
usurp. Collectors of rates might well despair if directed 
to get their dues from him, and school boards need not 
hope for his reclamation. A long immunitj^ from re- 
prisals has so emboldened this feathered gamin that he 
seems now to fear nothing, riding on omnibuses free of 
charge, occupying tenements without paj'ing rent, and 
feeding everywhere at no cost to himself. 

Such, summarized, would stand the indictment against 
the sparrow, — a contemner of all law, and a rebel against 
all order, a criminal egotist of a very serious t^^pe. But 
what can be said for the defence ? That he is consist- 
ently the friend of the farmer is still disputed, and that 
he fills an}^ important place in the economy of nature, a 
close observation of his habits must make everj^ one 
doubt. Imported into foreign countries as ' ' the friend 
of man," the sparrow, in Australia as well as in America, 
has multiplied into a public nuisance ; and in return for 
the gift of new worlds to colonize, the graceless birds 
have developed into a multitudinous evil. They have 
also been called " the nightingales of our roofs," and if 
the}^ remained upon the roofs only they might be per- 
mitted to retain the flattering title of nightingales. 
Since, however, thej^ come down off the slates into our 
houses and swagger about in our pleasure-grounds and 
business premises alike, giving us in return no pleasant 
song, their claims to the honor of " the queen of the 
feathered choir " cannot be gravely entertained. Upon 



224 Unnatural History. 

the house-tops, if they always stopped there, we might 
extend to them a generous admiration ; but when they 
contest with us the habitations which we have built for 
ourselves, and repay us for our protection with impu- 
dence only, such sympathy is difficult. 

How then can he be defended, this chief vagabond of 
the air? On his merits he stands categorically convicted, 
and for his shortcomings it is difficult to find excuse or 
palliation. Did he ever suffer from winter as the wild 
things of copse and hedge do, or from drought, or from 
the encroachments of civilization, his small presump- 
tions might pass unchallenged, as do those of the robins 
and the finches. But for him there is no frost so severe 
that it checks the supply of food in the streets, no snow 
so thick that it blocks up the sparrow's entrance to goods, 
sheds, and storehouses. His year has no Ramazan for 
him. For drought or flood he cares as little. His 
nurseries do not suffer b}^ rising rivers, nor are his 
meals curtailed b}' any severity of the seasons. Nor 
yet when man, advancing, pushes back the domains of 
wild things in waste land and wood, does the sparrow 
share in the troubles which fall to the lot of the song- 
sters of the countryside. Wherever man goes he fol- 
lows him, a parasite of his grain bags ; and no cit}" in 
which our countrj^men have settled is without him. 

I remember myself noticing, during the late campaigns 
in Afghanistan and Zululand, how the sparrows went 
wherever the commissariat wagons went, and established 
a colony at every depot. They crossed the Cabul River 
and the Buffalo with our armies, claiming at once 
privileges of conquest which our generals hesitated to 
assert. Thej^ levied instant toll on the grain fields, and 
billeted themselves upon the natives. 



Cats and Sparroivs. 225 

The area of their prevalence coincides with the em- 
pire of white men, for wherever, and as soon as, the flag 
goes up, in sign of the white man's rule, the sparrow 
perches on the top of it. Ships of all nations carry 
him as a stowaway from port to port, and, thus defraud- 
ing every company alike, these birds range the world, 
settling where they will. And everywhere the sparrow 
is safe alike. 

And who cares to catch him? Youth, it is true, lays 
preposterous snares of bricks to entrap him, and spar- 
row clubs conspire against him ; but no sportsman goes 
out to make a prej^ of him. Who, indeed, would ex- 
pend time and patience in fetching a compass about a 
sparrow, or sit a summer's day with net and line, de- 
co3'-bird and call, with a sparrow before his mind as his 
reward ? 

Abroad, also, the sparrow's arrival is hailed with 
patriotic glee, and municipalities incontinent^ go to and 
legislate for his protection. The sparrow soon discovers 
that he is favored, and no sooner makes the discovery 
than he presumes upon it. Selecting prominent corners 
of public buildings, he stuffs rubbish into the crevices of 
the friezes, and advertises by long rags which he leaves 
fluttering and flapping outside that he has built a nest. 
Secure from cats and assured of man's patronage, he 
thrives and multiplies his kind, each generation adding 
to the general stock of effrontery and presumptuously 
acquired privileges, until nations turn in wrath upon 
their oppressors. Men hired for the purpose rake out 
the sparrows' nurseries from under the eaves of the 
churches, and purge the town-hall. But the sparrow 
cares little for such clumsy retaliation. One house is 
as good as another, and as for a nest being destroyed, 

15 



226 Unnatural History. 

he is glad of an excuse for begiuning the honej'moon all 
over again. 

And this reminds me that it is not onl}^ in his public 
character that this vagabond fowl calls for animadver- 
sion. In private life his conduct is disreputable. As 
a frivolous parent, given to roUing eggs out of the 
nest, and even also his infant progeny ; as an unworthy 
spouse, transferring his affections lighth^, and often as- 
saulting the partner of his jo3'S and sorrows ; as a bad 
neighbor, scuffling with his kind wherever he meets with 
them, — in each aspect he presents himself to the moral 
mind as undeserving of respect. Yet, with something 
of that eccentricity of judgment which commends Punch, 
the immoral consort of Judy, to the public regard, we 
persist in looking upon the sparrow, with all his notori- 
ous faults, as a popular favorite, and resent any ex- 
posure of his obliquities. 

The tyranny of the sparrow, in fact, is the price of 
civilization. Only savages are exempt. 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 227 



VI. 

BEAES — WOLVES — DOGS — RATS. 

Bears are of three kinds, Big Bears, Middle-sized Bears, and 
Little Wee Bears. — Easily Provoked. — A Protest of Eoutine 
against Pteform. — But Unreliable. — Unfairly Treated in Liter- 
ature. — How Robbers went to steal the Widow's Pig, but found 
the Bear in the Sty. — The Delightful Triumph of Convictions 
in the Nursery. — The Wild Hunter of the Woods. — Its Splen- 
did Heroism. — Wolf-men. — Wolf-dogs. — Dogs we have all 
met. — Are Men only Second-rate Dogsl — Their Emotions and 
Passions the same as ours. — The Art of Getting Lost. — Man 
not inferior to Dogs in many ways. — The Rat Epidemic in 
India. — Endemic in England. — Western Prejudice and East- 
ern Tenderness. — Emblems of Successful Invasion. — Their 
Abuse of Intelligence — Edax Rerum. 

BEARS are of three kinds, as every child knows. 
There is the G-reat Big Bear, the Middle-sized 
Bear, and the Little Wee Bear. They are all of a do- 
mestic kind, and generally go out for a walk in the 
forest before breakfast, in order to give their porridge 
time to cool. When met with in a wild state the}^ can 
be easily distingaished hy their size, and by their sub- 
sequent conduct, for the bigger the bear is the more of 
you it will eat. If there is not much of 3'ou left when it 
has done, you ma}^ decide without hesitation that it was 
the Big bear you met : while if you are only moderately 
consumed, you ma}" safely conclude it was the Middle- 
sized bear. The Little Wee Bear, or bear-kin, will only 



228 Unnahiral History. 

trifle with you, take a mere snack, as it were — make a 
trifling collation or luncheon, so to speak, off you. 

But if still in doubt as to the species encountered, the 
Hindoo student's description of the bheel may assist 
the stranger in arriving at a correct conclusion, for the 
Big bear is black, " only much more hairy," and when 
it has killed you it leaves your body in a ditch. By 
this 3^ou may know the Big bear. 

But, unless provoked to attack you, these creatures 
will not do so ; so naturalists assure us. A bear's 
notions of provocation, however, are so peculiar that 
perhaps the safest rule for strangers to observe is not to 
let the animal see you. The bear never attacks any 
person whom it cannot see. This is a golden rule for 
persons who are in the habit of meeting bears to ob- 
serve. 

Otherwise there seem to be no limits to a bear's provo- 
cations. If it comes up behind you, and finds you 
not looking that wa3% it knocks off the back part of 
3'our head with one blow of its curved claws ; and if it 
meets you face to face it knocks off the front part of 
your head. But there is nothing agreeable in this 
variety. Again, if it discovers you sitting below it on 
the same hillside as itself, it rolls itself up, and comes 
trundling down the slope upon top of you like an ill- 
tempered portmanteau ; or if it is down below you, and 
becomes provoked, it comes scrambling up the hill with 
a speed that in a creature of such a shape is described, 
b}' those who have been charged, as quite incredible. 
Sometimes, on the other hand, bears receive very solid 
provocation without showing any resentment, for, as 
Captain Kinloch, a noted Indian Shikarry, has told us, 
the amount of lead which an old black bear will carry 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Rats. 229 

away in his quarters is amazing. But, as a rule, bears 
will not stand nonsense. It is well known how they 
behaved in the matter of Goldy locks, who, after all, had 
only eaten up the Little Wee Bear's porridge, and 
broken the seat of the Little Wee Bear's chair, and 
gone to sleep in Little W^ee Bear's bed. Yet, if the 
family had caught her, poor Goldylocks would probably 
never have got home to her mother to tell the tale. 

This characteristic animosity to man has given many 
writers on the bear a handle for great unfairness to- 
wards it. 

I far prefer, mj^ self, to see in the bear only some dull- 
witted, obstinate Mars, pathetic Jubal, or rough but 
staunch Sir Bors ; some slumberous man of might, a 
lazy Kwasind, or sluggard Kambu Kharna; an easily 
befooled Giant Dumbledore or Calabadran ; some loyal 
Earl Arthgal of the Table Round, or moody Margrave 
of Brandenberg — both of whom did not despise the 
fighting sobriquet of the Bear. For myself, I think no 
worse of the bear than Toussenel does, — indeed, hardly 
so badly ; for I hesitate to agree with him that it sym- 
bolizes only the spirit of persistent savagery, the incor- 
rigible protest of Routine against Reform ; that it is the 
feral incarnation of hostility to progress, and the 
champion-in-arms of the pretended rights of the Beast 
against the authority of Man. Men of science assure 
us that it is one of the senior quadrupeds of the earth ; 
and it was certainly the first among them that arrived 
at any idea of using fore paws as hands. But unfortu- 
nately for itself it has never raised itself any further in 
the scale ; and now that it has been driven into the 
forest and wilderness, it seems to consider itself un- 
fairly displaced, and sulkily maintains in the solitudes of 



230 Unnatural History. 

the hills the character of a misanthrope, the laudator 
temporis acti^ the Legitimist in retreat. 

But, iinfortunatel}' for it, even in Russia, where the 
animal is held in semi-reverential awe, its flesh is con- 
sidered a dainty by the hard-living races among whom 
it has raised its gloom}" standard of protest, and its skin is 
.valued everywhere; while its pomatum — Vhq pomade de 
lion of Paris, the " bear's grease" of London — is alone 
sufficient for its utter ruin. Pretenders should be poor 
if they wish to be unmolested. Yet the bear obstinately 
maintains the unequal struggle, appealing to its semi- 
erect posture, its hand-like paws, its almost-absent tail, 
and its innocent tastes, for the clemenc}' and considera- 
tion of man. It would, too, recall the facts of history', 
and remind us how, in the olden days of Roman beast- 
fights, the bear was hissed from the arena because it re- 
fused to fight with the Christians and other captives pro- 
vided for it ; and, pointing to the East, would remind us 
that there it is called a generous brute, because it will 
not molest the dead. If a man pursued bj^ a bear 
feigns death, the bear passes on after a most cursory 
examination, generousl}" preferring to be thus easily de- 
ceived rather than push examination be3"ond the limits of 
good taste. You shall also see in this way a trulj^ benev- 
olent man giving alms to a beggar sooner than scruti- 
nize too narrowly the necessity for giving relief. 

But I fear that none of these pleas avail the bear, for 
it is impossible to forget how lamentable are the excep- 
tions to that innocent appetite for leaves and berries 
and roots which it displays in Europe, and how abomi- 
nably carnivorous are the grizzty bear of America, and 
the polar bruin of the Arctic snows. These are facts 
bej^ond dispute — but I would not be unjust. I would 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 



not throw in their teeth, as some have done, the con- 
duct of those she-bears of Jiidea, who avenged the touchy 
prophet \>j desolating the nurseries of all the country- 
side, for that was a miracle over which the she-bears had 
no control. Nor would I give credence to Daniel, 
when he takes the bear as an emblem of faithlessness ; 
nor to the libellous narrative of Gesner, who tells us 
how bears make a practice of stealing young women ; 
nor yet would I admit in evidence the mocking eulogies 
of JElian. Phny and Aristotle are of course to be dis- 
credited, and we must therefore come to modern times 
to find the bear justly judged. The delightful La Fon- 
taine speaks of it as a blundering friend, and points 
the moral by the story of the bear who, wishing to brush 
away the fly that disturbed its master's slumbers, acci- 
dentally knocked off the top of its master's skull ; and 
Artemus Ward tells us how it can be taught to do 
" many interestin' things, but is onreliable." 

But, after all, this is no excessive disparagement, 
and within the moderate limits of justice. 

Among the stories which have delighted children of 
all countries, and probably from all time, is one that tells 
how certain evil-minded men went to steal a widow's 
pig, but how they found a bear in the st^^ instead, and 
how thereupon disaster, sudden and complete, overtook 
the robbers. 

No child ever doubted the truth of that story ; indeed 
how could it be doubted ? It is well known that widows 
do as a fact frequently keep a pig, and where should they 
keep it but in a sty? Again, thieves are notoriousl}^ 
given to steahng, and what could be more advantageously 
purloined than a pig, — above all a pig belonging to a 



232 Unnatural History, 

lone and unprotected widow ? It is not with swine as 
with poultiy or cattle, for the pig can be eaten up from 
end to end ; even his skin makes crackling, and nothing 
need be left behind. There are no accusing feathers to 
lie about the scene of larcenous revel, as is the case 
when hens have been devoured b}^ stealth, and no bulky 
,hide and horns to get rid of on the sty, as happens 
whenever robbers irregularly consume a neighbor's cow 
or calf. Again, a widow is, as a rule, a person who lives 
alone — I confidently appeal to all story-books . to sup- 
port this statement — and, except for such assistance as 
her cat can give her, is virtually defenceless at midnight 
against a number of armed and determined men. A 
widow's pig is therefore, and beyond all doubt, just the 
very thing to get itself stolen, and indeed we would 
venture to say that, as a matter of fact, it always is 
stolen. 

Is it not natural, then, in children to believe implicitly 
the story we refer to ? As for the other incidents of it 
— those in which the bear takes a prominent part — the}^, 
too, are exactly such as might be expected to occur fre- 
quently under similar circumstances. 

A poor bear-leader on his way to the neighboring 
town is benighted, on a stormy evening, in a soKtary 
place — just such a place as widows live in — and, know- 
ing from a large and varied experience of men and cities 
that widows are kind of heart, he intercedes for a night's 
lodging for himself and his beast. It is no sooner asked 
than granted. The widow turns the cat off the hearth 
to make room for the man, and the pig out of his st}' 
to make room for the bear. The cat and the pig grumble, 
of course, at having to make their own arrangements for 
the night ; but, at any rate, the sacred duties of hospital- 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 233 

ity have been faithfully discharged, and, in the sequel, 
the widow is rewarded. The stormy night has suggested 
itself to certain good-for-nothing vagabonds — who, in 
their tramps along the road, have marked down the 
widow's pig for their prej^ — as an excellent opportunity 
of coming at some home-fed bacon cheapl}^ ; and, un- 
conscious of the change of occupant, stealthily approach 
the st}^, hoping, under cover of the night, high wind, and 
pelting rain, to carry off the porker in a sack which they 
have provided for the purpose. How differentlj^ the case 
falls out is quickly told. The bear, instead of allowing 
itself to be put into the sack like a lamb, gets up on its 
hind legs, and nearly kills the robbers. 

From first to last the storj^ has always been completely 
credible, for given a widow with a pig, a man with a 
bear, and robbers with a sack, the incident is one that 
might happen at any time. 

Such being the storj^, so consistent in its circumstances 
and so complete in its action, it is ver}^ pleasing to find 
that the implicit faith of children in it has, after all, been 
rewarded by its actual occurrence. Everything is true 
that really happens, and it does not matter whether the 
story or the event comes first. Where the incidents 
have already actua% transpired, and a writer sits down 
to describe them, the narrative is, no doubt, often excel- 
lent, vivid, picturesque, faithful, and so forth. Never- 
theless, it is rather a commonplace performance after all, 
and depends for its virtues either upon the state of the 
narrator's eyesight and his propinquity to the scene of 
the event, or else to his judicial capacity for appraising 
the value of the evidence of others. But where the 
writer describes occurrences which have not jQt occurred, 
the merits of his work are infinitelj^ enhanced ; and the 



234 Unnatural History. 

wisdom of the prophets is nowhere more conspicuous 
than in their selection of this method of narration. 

Thej^ made it a rule to speak before the event, instead 
of after it, and it is owing almost entirel}' to this that 
their utterances have been so highl}^ spoken of 

Truth, it is said, is stranger than fiction ; and so it is in 
a certain sense, because it is in the nature of fiction to be 
strange ; but truth is a prosaic, ever3'-day sort of thing, 
and when it is romantic it strikes the mind as being 
peculiarly wonderful. We do not as a rule expect facts 
to surprise us ; so when the}' do, they startle ns much 
more than any narrative ever created by novelist or 
poet. In that case the}^ are more like fiction than fiction 
itself, and are therefore all the more charming. Thus, 
"The Bear in the Pig-st}^" story may be considered 
admirable, while a pleasure is superadded b}' the reflec- 
tion that the faith of childhood, which is at once the 
most solemn and the most fascinating attribute of that 
reverend and delightful age, has not been trifled with 
and betraj'ed. That the story was true the children 
have known all along, but now everybod}^ knows it too, 
and acknowledges that the children were right. 

At the village of Massegros, in France, only the other 
day, a bear-man came along the road with a bear, and 
asked for a night's lodging, and the bear was put into 
the pig-st3\ At night three men came to steal the pig ; 
but, on the contrarj^, one of the men died, the second 
very nearly, and the third went mad with fright. The 
bear did it — just as it was written in the story-book 
years upon years ago — and the pig is back in Ins sty 
again. 

No wonder one man went mad from fright, for the 
difference between pigs and bears is very considerable ; 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 235 

and the thief putting out his arm to take hold, as he 
thought, of the sleek and inoffensive porker, might well 
be startled out of his senses to find himself handling the 
shagg3^ hide of a bear. The horror of the discover}- , the 
utter impossibihty of guessing what had happened, 
the first bewildering instant when Bruin rose with a roar 
from the litter, the next of horrid and inexplicable pain 
as the great brute closed with its assailant, combined to 
make such an experience as might well terrify the reason 
out of a man. Suddenness and darkness are the most 
awful allies of the dreadful, and when to these are added 
a consciousness of guilt and superstitious fear, the wits 
might easily take to flight, and a cunning thief go out a 
gibbering idiot. 

For those who were hurt, — fatally, so the report says, 
— the horrors of the incident were in one sense even ag- 
gravated, as the bear is monstrous!}^ cruel in its attack. 
Thus natives of India look upon the wounds which it 
inflicts with even greater dread than ihey regard those 
from a tiger, for the latter are either clear gashes or 
bone-shattering blows ; but, as a rule, the bear, stand- 
ing erect before it closes with a man, strikes at the head 
and its huge blunt claws tear the skin down off the scalp, 
and over the face, or lay the throat bare, in either case 
blinding and stunning the unhappy wretch. The pain 
of even such an attack as that, however, could hardly 
increase for the unfortunate men the terrors of their posi- 
tion, when there rose up out of the pig's straw the giant 
apparition of a growling beast, a great black monster all 
hair and fury, that was upon them in an instant, roaring 
like an earthquake, and striking with the arms of a giant. 
No wonder that two of the three are dead, and the other 
one is mad ! 



236 Unnatural History, 

But the triumph of virtue was delightfully complete, 
and the pig came by its own again. The widow who 
hospitably entertained the homeless bear-man, and the 
cat that surrendered her corner by the fire to the 
stranger were rewarded ; the wicked men who went 
about stealing pigs were punished, and the story of the 
old fairy-tale book came true. 

The moral of this evidently is that no one should re- 
fuse charity even to bears, and no one should steal pigs ; 
for, though bear ham is good, it is not the same as pork 
ham, and it is better to save j-our own bacon than to 
steal 3^our neighbor's. There is a second moral also, 
and that is that children are wiser than grown-up people, 
inasmuch as they believe that there is nothing so won- 
derful but it may really come to pass, and that ever}^- 
thing which will happen has already happened before. 
Children never give over expecting and hoping, and this 
is wh}^ they alone are never disappointed, and why they 
deserve so thoroughly to enjoy the triumph of their con- 
victions. 

The wolf is a creature of ver}' bad character, and 
deserves most of it. Born of poor but dishonest 
parents, he inherits the family instinct for crime, and 
industriouslj" commits it. No jury would recommend 
him to mercy, even on the score of j-outh, nor any 
chaplain pretend after execution that the deceased had 
died repentant. 

Contrition, it i& ti'ue, is a mandrake. It springs up 
under the gallows. 

But the wolf, even in the very shadow of death re- 
mains a wolf still, and, according to the condition of 
his stomach, shows either one abominable phase of his 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 237 

character or the other. If hungry he is abject, and 
curls himself up meekly to receive the fatal blow, dying 
without half the protest that even a healthy lamb would 
make. But if he has just dined he snarls and snaps to 
the last. Yet even the wolf has found his apologists. 

We have been told that he is only a dog gone wrong, 
that evil communications have corrupted his original 
manners, and that under more wholesome home influ- 
ences he might have developed into a good dog Tra}', 
instead of the bandit and assassin that he is. 

The poetr}^ of crime, however, is a dangerous theme, 
and when sentiment indulges itself upon the pictur- 
esque-ness of a criminal's career, it is liable to degener- 
ate into a whimsical justification of wrong-doing and its 
doer. I can appreciate the solemnit}" of the wolfs 
murders, supreme tragedies as they often are — or the 
splendor of its ravages when, Attila-like, it descends 
upon the fat plains to scourge the lowland folk — or the 
nobility of its recklessness as, from age to age, it 
challenges man to the unequal conflict — or the heroism 
which sends it out alone into the haunts of men to carry 
away a child, so that its own whelps ma}^ not starve. 
Nor in all the records of human violence is there to be 
found anything more tremendous than the deadly pa- 
tience with which the trooped wolves pursue their vic- 
tims, or the fierce e7«?z with which the}' launch themselves 
from the forest depths upon the passing prey. A party 
of eighty Russian soldiers, fully armed, were moving in 
mid-winter from one post to another, when, just as the 
shades of evening were closing round them, an im- 
mense pack of wolves — scouring the black countrj'side 
for food — came suddenly across their line of march. 
Rather than swerve from their course, the intrepid 



238 Unnatural History. 

brutes flung themselves upon the soldiers, and tore 
every man of the detachment to pieces. 

This is literally an instance of that ' ' Berserker rage," 
that fearless, unarmed rage of which the Scandinavian 
chroniclers tell us in terms of awesome admiration, so 
long as the heroes were the fair-bearded men who 
followed their Erics and Olafs to the sea. Now, for 
myself, I do not grudge the same admiration to the 
wolf when it acts as bravel}^ as those old heroes of the 
Sagas, especially since the Norsemen themselves, to ex- 
press the intensity of their valor and the surpassing 
ferocit}^ of their attack, had to go to the wolf for a 
simile. But, after all, no pleading can avail the wolf, 
for the whole history of man — black or white, brown, 
red or yellow — convicts these animals of persistent and 
ineradicable wickedness — rising, often, it is true, to a 
considerable dignit}^ in the proportions and manner of 
their crime, but as a rule taking rank only as misde- 
meanants of the lowest t^'pe. 

Children looking at wolves alwaj's greet them as 
how-wows., and in their pretty sympathy offer the 
wild hunter of the forest morsels of bun. Such 
cates, however, are not to the wolf's taste ; he would far 
rather have the children themselves. But he knows 
that that is out of the question, so he blinks his eyes 
wearil}^, and with a sharp expression of discontent at 
his lot resumes his restless motion up and down the 
cage. 

Onl}^ very young children, however, mistake the wolf 
for a dog, for there is that in its ugl}^ e3'es, set so close 
together and so sinister in their expression, that tells the 
elder ones that the creature before them is no dog, or, 
at any rate, not an honest specimen. Besides, nursery 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Eats. 239 

stories, fairy tales, and fables have taught them long ago 
the likeness of the wolf and its character, and the first 
look at the sharp snout set in gray fur reminds them of 
that face that little Red Riding Hood found looking out 
at her, one fine May morning, from under her dear old 
grandmother's nightcap. If the literature of the nursery 
has thus famiharized the wolf to the younger generation, 
their elders also, of whatever nation they may be, and 
whatever language they may speak, have continued to 
lear^ from a hundred sources of the implacable brute 
(the totem of the Pawnees) that makes the great high- 
ways of forest and plain in Northern and Eastern 
Europe and the mountain paths of the Pyrenees and 
Apennines so perilous to belated travellers, — that robs 
the Indian mothers of their children, or pulls down the 
solitary wood-gatherer as he goes trudging home at 
nightfall along the pathway that skirts the jungle. 
Tales of horror crowd into their memory as the}^ look at 
the unkempt and restless -creatures, condemned to-day 
to civilization and monotony, but once, perhaps, actors 
themselves in the very scenes that make the narratives 
of wolf adventure so appalling. In a bare cage, with 
iron bars before it, it is difficult to realize the full mean- 
ing of the thing before you. 

There is nothing in its appearance, except that sinister 
proximit}' of its eyes, to betoken a creature so eminently 
dangerous when wild, no significance of cruel fury in 
its voice, no profession of murderous strength in its 
limbs. It looks like a shabb}^ dog, and howls like an 
unhappy one. There is no fierce tiger-eloquence of e3'e, 
no ravening hyena-clamor in its voice, no lion-majesty 
of form. It seems a poor thing for an}^ one, even a 
child, to be afraid of, for it appears half-fed and weak- 



240 Unnatural History. 

limbed. As it trots backwards and forwards it is hard 
to believe that these pattering feet are really the same 
as those that can swing along the countryside in an un- 
tiring gallop, defy the horse and laugh the greyhound to 
scorn ; or that the thin neck, craning out of the kennel 
there, could ever bear a dead child's weight. Yet this is 
indeed the very creature that has made countries ring 
with its dreadful deeds of blood, that has held mountain 
passes and lonesome wood- ways against all comers, has 
desolated villages and aroused the resentment of kings. 
There must, then, be something more, after all, in the 
thin-bodied thing than the eye catches at first sight, 
or why should England have had two monarchs that 
waged imperial war against it, or have had a month named 
after it, — the modern Januar}^, the old Wolf-monath, so 
called because the depredations of the beast were then es- 
pecially terrible ; or why should the wolf have been in- 
cluded in Enghsh litanies as one of the chief perils of life ? 
"From caterans and all other kinds of robbers; from 
wolves and all other kinds of evil beasts, deliver us, O 
Lord ! " 

In other countries it has been at times a veritable 
scourge, and wherever this has happened local legend 
and folk-lore have invested the animal with strange, gaunt 
terrors. In the hungr}^ North, where Arctic snows for- 
bid the multiplication of small animal life, and the wolf 
would often be starved but for man and his domestic 
beasts, the wolf is the popular symbol of all that is 
tragic or to be dreaded, and signifies, in their supersti- 
tion, the supreme superlative of ruin ; for they sa}^ that 
when the last tremendous Night overshadows the earth, 
and our planet sinks out of the darkened firmament into 
eternal gloom, the Fenris-wolf and the SkoU-wolf will 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 241 

appear and devour the gods and the firmament ! Far- 
ther to the south, we find Scandinavian tradition replete 
with weird wolf-lore ; and it is the same in Finland and 
all over Russia, Germany, and France, where the hor- 
rible fiction of the loup-garou — parti}" ghoul and parti}'' 
wolf-man — still holds its own. Indeed, so terribl}^ 
associated are the crimes of wolves and the sufierings 
of men that all over Europe, from the snows of Lapland 
to sunny Spain, the gruesome legend is a household 
story, and the wehr-wolf and wolf-children carr}^ on 
the old Greek and Latin superstitions of the lycan- 
thropes. 

It is, however, in the East, in India, that the wolf at- 
tains the complete measure of its obliquities ; for just. 
as the korait snake kills a greater number of human 
beings than the far more deadly cobra, so the wolf 
takes infinitely more lives than the tiger. Thousands 
of adults fall victims annually to this animal's daring 
and ferocity, and the destruction of child-life by it is 
prodigious. It is not only in the remoter districts, 
where jungles and rocky wildernesses are found, that 
the wolves thus prey upon man, but in the very midst 
of busy towns. 

They will creep, so the natives say, into houses, and 
lick the babies from the sleeping mothers' arms. The 
soft warm touch of the wild beast's tongue melts the 
guardian fingers open. One b}^ one they loosen their 
hold, and, as the wrists sink apart, the baby slides grad- 
uall}" out of the protecting arms against the soft coat of 
the wolf. It does not wake, and then the brute bends 
down its head to find the child's throat. There is a 
sudden snap of closing teeth, a little strangling cry, and 
the mother starts to her feet to hear the rustle of the 

16 



242 



Unnatural History. 



grass screen before the door as it is pushed ajar, and to 
feel her own feet slip in the blood at her side. 

There are those who would gloss over the wolfs crimes 
b}' declaring it to be the brother of the dog, and it may 
be true enough that wolves learn to bark when fostered 
by canine mothers, that the dogs of the Arctic regions 
are in realit}^ only wolves, and that till the white man 
came the Red Indian had no quadruped companion but 
the wolf. But, after all, such facts onl}' amount to this 
— that though wolves are never fit to be called dogs, 
there are some undeveloped specimens of dogs only fit 
to be called wolves. 



I am ver}" fond of dogs, and have indeed, in India 
had as man}' as seven upon my establishment at one time. 
Some I knew intimatel}', others were mere acquaintances ; 
but speaking dispassionatel}' of them, and taking one with 
another, I should hesitate to say that thej" were superior 
to ordinarj^ men and women. It is, I know, the fashion 
to cite the dog as a better species of human being and to 
depreciate men as if they were dogs gone wrong. I am 
not at all sure that this is just to ourselves, for speaking 
of the dogs I have met — the same dogs in fact that we 
have all met — I must saj' that, on the whole, I look upon 
the dog as onl}- a kind of beast after all . At an}^ rate I am 
prepared to produce from amongst my acquaintances 
as many sensible men as sensible dogs, and if necessary 
a large number of human beings who if taken by accident 
or design out of the road will set themselves right again, 
who if separated for years from friends will readily recog- 
nize them and welcome them, who on meeting those who 
have done them previous injuries will show at once by 
their demeanor that they remember the old grudge, who 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 243 

will detect false notes in a player's performance, catch 
thieves, carr}^ baskets to the butchers, defend their mas- 
ters, and never worrj^ sheep. On the other hand I will 
produce in equal number dogs who get themselves lost 
regularly and for good, until a reward is offered, who 
never recognize old acquaintances, but will fawn upon 
those who have injured them, who will sleep complacent- 
Ij through the performances of organ-grinders and never 
wake up when thieves are on the premises ; who cannot 
be trusted with meat, and who will run awa}^ from their 
masters if danger threatens. Being quite certain of this, 
I think I am justified in maintaining that dogs are no 
better than men, and indeed I should not quarrel with 
him if any one were to say that but for man the dog 
would have been much worse than he is — probably, 
only a wolf still. 

As a matter of fact, most of the dogs of m}' acquaint- 
ance have been positively stupid. One that I remember 
well was, however, considered bj^ my friends of remark- 
able intelligence ; but this story often told of him, to 
illustrate his intelligence, did not give me when I heard 
it, any high opinion of his intellect. But I may be 
wrong. He was accustomed, it appears, to go with the 
family to church. But one day the old church roof 
began to leak, so workmen were set at the job and the 
building was closed. But when Sunda}" came this in- 
telligent dog trotted off as he was wont to do, to the 
church, and, composing himself in the porch as usual, 
remained there the customar}^ time and trotted com- 
placently^ home again. Now where does the intelli- 
gence come in, in this anecdote ? 

In a similar way stories are told in illustration of other 
feelings and passions, but most of them, so it seems to 



244 Unnatural History. 

me, cut both ways. There are, indeed, many human 
feelings which the dog evinces in a marked way, and 
often upon very httle provocation. The dog, for 
instance, expresses anger precisely as we do, and, in ac- 
cordance with the human precept, ' ' When the boy hits 
3^ou, kick the post," will bite his friend to show his dis- 
pleasure at a stranger. I had a little bull-terrier which 
went frantic if a pedlar or beggar came to the door, and, 
being restrained from flying at the innocent itinerant, 
would rush out as soon as released into the shrubbery 
and go for the gardener. The gardener knew the dog's 
ways, for he had had a sharp nip vicariously before, and 
when he saw Nellie on her way towards hiin, used to 
charge her with a lawn mower. Now at other times 
the gardener and Nellie were inseparable friends, and, 
weather permitting, the gardener's coat and waistcoat 
were Nellie's favorite bed. In human nature it is much 
the same, when the husband, because the news in the 
paper is disagreeable, grumbles at his wife's cap. 

Hatred also the dog feels keenty, — in the matter of 
cats notably. I have seen one of the exceptionallj' in- 
telligent dogs referred to above, stop and jump under a 
tree for an hour, and go back every day for a month 
afterwards to jump about ridiculously under the same 
tree, all because a cat which he had once been after, 
and wanted to catch, had got up that tree out of his 
wa}^ There is no doubt in my mind whatever, from 
that dog's behavior, that he hated the cat. 

Jealousy again is a common trait, and in Thornley's 
book there is an instance given of a dog that was so 
jealous of another pet that when the latter died, and had 
been stuffed, he alwaj^s snarled if attention was drawn 
to the glass case from which his rival gazed with glassy 



Bears, Wolves, JDogs^ Bats. 245 

e3'e upon the scene. The envy of the dog has given 
rise to the well-known fable of the dog in the manger ; 
and the story told in " False Beasts and True " (in il- 
lustration of canine sagacitj^) exemplifies this trait in a 
striking way. Leo was a large and lawless dog, be- 
longing to an establishment where lived also a mild 
Maltese terrier. The latter, however, fed daintily, and 
was clad in fine linen, whereas Leo got as many rough 
words as bones, and was not allowed in the pretty 
rooms of which the terrier was a favored inmate. From 
the reports furnished of the judicial inquiry which fol- 
lowed the crime, it seems that the lesser (very much 
lesser) dog had been missed for several daj^s, and his 
absence bewailed, while something in the demeanor of 
the big dog suggested to all beholders that some terrible 
tragedy had occurred and that Leo was darkly privy 
thereto. A length a servant going to the coal-hole 
heard a feeble moaning proceeding from the farthest 
corner, and on investigating with a candle, the Maltese 
terrier was foun^ buried under lumps of coal. The 
supposition was that Leo had carried his diminutive 
rival to the coal-hole, and there scratched down an 
avalanche of coals upon him ; and the manners of the 
two dogs when confronted bore striking evidence to the 
truth of the theory. Of Leo's envy there can hardly 
therefore be a suspicion. 

Gluttony is common to all dogs, but their general 
aversion to drunkenness is supposed, by their partial 
eulogists, to be demonstrated by the fact attested by the 
Rev. F. Jackson of a dog who, having been once made 
so drunk with malt liquor that he could not get upstairs 
without help, always growled and snarled at the sight of 
a pewter pot ! To establish in a feeble way this indi- 



246 ■ Unnatural History. 

vidual's dislike of malt liquor, the eulogist, it seems 
to me, has trifled away the dog's intelligence altogether. 
Nor, as illustrating sagacity^ is the following anecdote 
so very forcible at it might be. Begum was a small red 
cocker who, with a very strange perception of her own 
importance, engaged as her attendant a mild Pomer- 
anian of her own sex, who having onlj^ three available 
legs, displaj^ed the gentler manners of a confirmed 
invalid. Begum, several times in her long and respected 
career, became the joyful mother of puppies, and on all 
these interesting occasions her friend Rip (or Mrs. 
Gamp, as she came to be called) presided over her 
nurser}^, kept beside the mother in her temporary 
seclusion, exhibited the little strangers to visitors with 
all the mother's pride during her absences, and in short, 
behaved herself like a devoted friend. " Strange to 
sa}^," saj^s the author, " when the poor nurse herself 
was dying, and Begum was brought to her bedside to 
cheer her, the sagacious cocker snuffed her friend, and 
then leaping gaily over her postrate, gasping form, left 
the stable for a frolic, and never looked in again on 
her faithful attendant." This narrative, however, hardly 
illustrates the remarkable gratitude which may be almost 
said to be a dog's leading principle. 

Regret and grief dogs no doubt share also with men, 
for my own terrier when he stands with sadly oscillating 
tail and his head stuck through the area railings, whimp- 
ering for ' ' the touch of a vanished cat " and ' ' the 
sound of a puss that is still," bears ample testimon}^ to 
the former ; nor when, out ferreting, the rabbit has mys- 
teriously disappeared into an impassable earth, is there 
any room for hesitation as to Tim's grief. His regret 
at the rabbit's evasive habits is unmistakable. Mrs. 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 247 

Sumner Gibson, to illustrate joy^ tells us of her pet, 
which on seeing her unexpectedly return after a long 
absence was violently sick. I remember when at school 
seeing a violent physical shock, accompanied by the 
same sj^mptoms, affect a boy when suddenly approached 
by a master while in the act of eating gooseberries in 
class. But none of us attributed the result to an excess 
of delight. 

Laziness is a trait well exemplified in dogs. Thus 
Cole's dog of ancient fame was so lazy that he al- 
waj^s leaned his head against a wall to bark. So did 
Ludlam's. 

Courage is not more common among dogs than among 
men. I had once three dogs who accompanied me on a 
certain occasion to a museum. The hall at the entrance 
was devoted to the larger mammalia, and the dogs on 
passing the folding door found themselves suddenly 
confronted by the whole order of the carnivora, all 
drawn up according to their families and genera, ready 
to fall upon and devour them. With a howl of the most 
dismal horror, all three flung themselves against the 
door, and if I had not rushed to open it, would certainly 
have died or gone mad then and there from sheer terror. 
As it was they flew through the open door with every 
individual hair on their bodies standing out like a wire, 
and arrived at home, some three miles off, in such a 
state of alarm that my servants were seriously alarmed 
for m}' safety. One of the three always slept in my 
room at night, but on the night after the fright howled 
so lamentably, and had such bad dreams, that I had to 
expel him. Miss Cobbe, in her delightful book, illus- 
trates this whimsical cowardice b}^ a bull terrier, who, 
ready apparently to fight anything, went into paroxysms 



248 Unnatural History. 

of hj'sterical screaming if an Indian-rubber cushion was 
filled or emptied with air in her presence ; and the garden- 
hose filled her with such terror that on the day when it 
was in use, Trip was never to be found on the premises, 
nor would any coaxing or commands persuade her to go 
into the room where the tube was kept all the rest of 
the week. 

Pride affects the dog mind, for who has not heard 
of Dawson's dog that was too proud to take the wall 
of a dung-cart, and so got flattened under the wheels ? 
'Vanity was admirably displayed by an old setter, who 
often caused us great inconvenience b}^ insisting on fol- 
lowing members of the famil}^ whenever they went out, 
usuallj' most inopportunely. But one day the children, 
playing with it, tied a bow of ribbon on to the tip of its 
tail, and on ever3'body laughing at the dog's appear- 
ance, the animal retired under the sofa and sulked for 
an hour. Next day, therefore, when Nelson showed 
ever}^ symptom of being irrepressibly intent on accom- 
panying the famil}^ to a croquet party to which he had 
not been invited, it occurred to one of the party to 
tr}' the effect of a bow. The ribbon was accordingly 
brought, and Nelson being held quiet b}^ two of the 
girls, the third decorated his tail. No sooner was he 
released, and discovered the adornment, than the self- 
conscious dog rushed into the house and hid under the 
sofa ! An hour after the party were gone, he came out 
as far as the doorstep, and when the family returned 
there was Nelson sitting on his haunches with the most 
comic air of having something mortifying to conceal, and 
refraining from even wagging his tail, lest the hateful 
bow should be seen. Chivalry, magnanimity, treachery, 
meanness, a sense of propriety or utter absence of 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 249 

shame, humor, etc., may all in turn be similarly proved 
to be shared by the dog world ; but it is a singular fact 
that so many of the anecdotes put forward to illustrate 
the virtues of this animal should, if read with a little 
irreverence towards the dogs, lend themselves to con- 
flicting if not opposite conclusions. 

Indeed, I look upon the woolly little white dog that 
is so common as a pet in England as absolute^ criminal. 
You can see what a timid creature it is by the way it 
jumps when any cabman shouts, and j-et its foolishness 
and greediness have got as many men into jail as a 
street riot would have done. You have only to look at 
it to see what an easy dog it is to steal. In fact, it was 
made to be stolen, and it faithfully fulfils its destiny. 
One man — the father of a young family, too — has 
been in prison twice for stealing that same dog. It is 
true that, on the other hand, he has sold it at a splendid 
profit on five other occasions, and has pocketed a hand- 
some reward for " finding " it several times besides, but 
he nevertheless owes several weeks' incarceration to that 
same little dog's infamousty criminal habit of looking so 
stealable. He can no more keep his hands off the ani- 
mal than needles can help going to the nearest load- 
stone. It is of no use his trying to look the other way, 
or repeating the Lord's Pra3"er, or thrusting his hands 
right down to the bottom of his breeches' pockets, for 
as surely as ever that little dog comes bj^, Jerry will 
have to steal it. It is chiefly the dog's fault. It never 
follows its master or mistress for the time being like a 
steady dog of business, but trots flickeringly about the 
pavement, as if it was going nowhere in particular with 
nobod}^ It makes excursions up alleys on its own ac- 
count, and comes running back in such a hurry that it 



250 Unnatural History. 

forgets whether it ought to turn to the right or the left ; 
or it goes half across a road and then takes fright at a 
cab, and runs speeding down the highwa}^ in front of it 
under the impression that the vehicle is in pursuit. Or 
it loiters at a corner to talk canine commonplaces to a 
strange dog, and then, like an idle errand boj^, accom- 
panies its new acquaintance a short wa}' round several 
corners. Or it mixes itself up with an old gentleman's 
legs, and gets eventually trodden upon, and precipitatel}^ 
makes off squeaking down the middle of a crowded 
thoroughfare into which its owner cannot follow it. Of 
all these weaknesses Jerrj- and his comrades are per- 
fectlj^ well aware ; and if you will only follow the dog 
for a quarter of an hour you will see the little wretch 
get " lost," as it calls itself— or as Jerry calls it, when 
the policeman inquires about the dog. There are some 
people who go through life leaving watches on dressing- 
tables and money on mantelpieces, and then prosecute 
the servants who steal them ; others who lend strangers 
sovereigns in order to show their confidence in them, 
and then call in the police to get the stranger punished ; 
others who post money in open envelopes, and are bit- 
terly indignant with the authorities because it is never 
received by the addressee ; manj^ again who walk about 
with their purses in pockets placed where morality 
never meant pockets to be ; who, in fact, are perpetually 
putting temptation into the waj' of their weak brethren, 
and then putting their weak brethren in gaol. And the 
foolish little white dog that is always getting itself stolen 
is exactly their representative in the canine society 
which, we are assured, reflects our own. 

For mj^self, I think the dignified position which the 
dog fills in human society can be far more worthity 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Rats. 251 

treated, than by anecdotes of his various virtues and 
vices, for after all he is one of man's chiefest triumphs, 
and one of his noblest servants. " In the beginning 
Allah created Man, and seeing what a helpless creature 
he was He gave him the Dog. And He charged the 
Dog that he should be the ej'es and the ears, the under- 
standing and the legs of the Man." 

The writer, Toussenel, then goes on to show how the 
dog was fitted for his important duties b}^ being inspired 
with an overwhelming sense of the privileges of friend- 
ship and loyal devotion, and a corresponding disregard 
of the time-wasting joys of family and fireside pleasures, 
thinking, no doubt, with Bacon, that those without 
families — the discipline of humanit}^ — make alwa3^s 
the best public servants. " He that hath wife and chil- 
dren hath given hostages to fortune ; for they are 
impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or 
mischief." And again, " Charity will hardly water the 
ground where it must first fill a pool." The dog, there- 
fore, was relieved of paternal affections in order that he 
might be able to give an undivided mind to the high 
task set before him, and thus afford primitive man, in 
the flock-tending days, the leisure necessar}^ for dis- 
covering the arts and evolving the sciences. 

If Tubal Cain, for instance, had had to run after his 
own herds he could never have got on with his pan- 
pipes ; so the dog attended to the sheep and the goats, 
the kine and the camels, while his master sat in the 
shade by the river, testing the properties of reeds. 
Music was the result, thanks to the dog. In the same 
way, perhaps, we might trace all other great discoveries 
to the same canine source ; and, really, seeing even now- 
adays, when man has become such a self-helping creat- 



252 Unnatural History. 

ure, how man}^ dogs keep men and how many of them 
support old ladies, the philosopher would seem to have 
some basis for his fanciful theor}' that, but for dogs, men ' 
would still have been shepherds, and human society still 
in its patriarchal stage. The Red Indians keep no 
dogs ; and what is the result ? AH their time is given 
up to dog's work, and they lead a dog's life doing it — 
chasing wild things about- and holloaing after them. 
Other peoples, however, who started with them in the 
race of nations, and who utilized the dog, are now en- 
joying all the comforts of nineteenth-centur}^ civilization, 
hunting only for amusement and shepherding only on 
valentines. 

Writers on the dog claim for it the noblest attributes 
of humauit}^, and share with it our meanest failings ; 
and, although the vast majorit}' of instances of canine 
mind may be classified under the phenomena of self- 
interest and imitation, it is humiliating to feel that, if 
the dogs were to give their opinions of men, the same 
classification would hold good, and that for each of 
their own weaknesses they could cite a parallel among 
men. 

At present, as the matter stands, man seems in some 
danger of being reckoned only the second best of 
animals. 

In a dispassionate view of the subject, however, the 
foibles of the dog should not be, as they so often are, 
overlooked. 

Indeed, it might be well if some one would compile a 
counterblast of remarkable instances of the intelligence 
and docilitj^ of man, the human Trustys and good Dog 
Trays that abound in the world ; the men who have 
been known to lose their friends in the streets and to 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 263 

find them again ; who have been carried to immense dis- 
tances by wrong trains, and turned up at home after all ; 
who recognize acquaintances with every demonstration 
of delight after a long separation ; who carry baskets 
from the bakers, and do not eat the contents by the 
way ; who worry cats ; who rescue men from drowning 
and from other forms of death ; who howl when they 
hear street organs ; who know a thief when he comes 
creeping up the back stairs at midnight, and hold him 
until help arrives ; who fetch, and cany, and beg ; who, 
in fact, do everything that a dog can do, and have died 
for all the world like Christians. 

Such instances of intelligence in men, and even 
women, abound, and are amply' authenticated by eje- 
witnesses. 

Nor are any of the passions which move dogs un- 
known to human kind, for anecdotes illustrative of anger, 
fear, env}^, courage, and so forth, are plentifully scat- 
tered up and down the pages of history and biograph3^ 
In short, looking at the matter from both sides, 1 really 
think myself that there is no reason for supposing that 
man is in anj?- wa}^ inferior to the dog. 

In science the dogs go after the rats. So the}^ do in 
nature. But in this book I was obliged to put the rats 
behind the dogs, as dogs grow so naturally out of 
wolves that I had it not in m}^ heart to spoil the con- 
nection merely for the sake of being scientific. ' But the 
connection between rats and dogs, whichever way they 
come in a book, is none the less very intimate indeed, 
more so sometimes than the rats like. 

But rats have a large history of their own, outside rat- 
pits. In Eg3^pt and Chaldsea the}^ were the symbol of 
utter destruction, while in India they are to-day the em- 



254 Unnatural History. 

blem of prosperous wisdom. The Romans took augur}^ 
from rats, — happy indeed the man who saw a white one ; 
and Apollo, the most artistic of the Greek divinities, 
did not scorn the title of the rat-killer. In this very 
England of ours, the hardy Norseman rats bore their 
share in the Conquest nobly, and on the continent they 
have ruined a city and a river. Rats, they say, have 
scuttled ships, and it is certain they once ate up a 
bishop. 

Not long ago, rat-catching engrossed much of the at- 
tention of the Government of India. The emergency 
was as serious as it was preposterous, for among the 
great vermin plagues that have afflicted the world the 
rat-invasion that devastated the Deccan must take high 
rank. Indeed, since the croaking nuisance took posses- 
sion of the halls of Pharaoh, there have been very few 
visitations that have so directly insulted the majesty of 
man's high birth, and so absurdl}^ perplexed him. 

Up and down the world at different times there have 
been many plagues — plagues of locusts and cock- 
chafers, of mice and caterpillars, plagues that have 
ravaged the vineyards and the corn-fields, the pine- 
forests and the orchards, plagues that have afflicted the 
farmer and the merchant, the prince and the peasant, 
the tradesman and the manufacturer, plagues of beasts 
and birds and insects. Armies have actuall}^ marched 
against little things with wings, and senates have 
gravely sat in council over creeping creatures. The 
British force at Waterloo was not so numerous as that 
which the Moor sent against the advancing locusts ; nor 
did the fathers of the citj^, fluttered by the news of Lars 
Porsena's approach, meet in more serious concern than 
did the French Assembly to concert measures, the State 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 255 

being in danger, to resist the sauterelle vorace. But 
in all these, quite apart from the gravity of the evil, 
there was a matter-of-fact sobriety about the circum- 
stances of the impending danger, which separates them 
from the rodent visitation of the Deccan. Locusts are the 
avowed enemies of mankind, and their destruction has 
always been cheerfully assented to as a pleasing act of 
justice. No one when the vastatrix was at work among 
the vines held back the arm of retributive chemistry, nor 
when the cynips was vandalizing among our turnips was 
a kindly word spoken for the tiny foe. In India, how- 
ever, ever}' thing, whether with fur or feathers, whether 
winged or wingless, finds a friend. Beautiful legends, 
orchid-like, have overgrown the old country, and so not 
only ever^'thing that moves, but every leaf that stirs, 
has a poem or a quaint conceit attached to it. 

We in the West have flung our prejudices €it even 
inoffensive creatures. Thus, the cormorant is abused by 
every poet who has mentioned the bird. The owl has 
no more friends than the toad ; and tliB buzzard and the 
raven are as unpopular, and as heartily maligned b}^ our 
imaginative writers, and in our proverbs and ballads, as 
the badger and the newt. Many others meet only with 
acidulated compliments, and some — like the glutton 
among beasts, the crow among birds — are ungenerously 
denied the possession of the most ordinary beast and 
fowl virtues. It is true that, on the other hand, we 
flatter unworthily the creatures of our own affection, 
embarrassing the pelican with our undeserved regard, 
and in the robin canonizing what in the sparrow we 
anathematize. But misplaced esteem does not compen- 
sate for wanton depreciation ; nor does it affect our 
action when our prejudices are called into lively expres- 



256 



Unnatural History. 



sion. Spiders fare ill with most of us, and no earwig of 
discernment comes for a holida}^ among us. 

In India, however, ever^^thing alike is welcome at the 
fountain of superstitious tenderness, and where Euro- 
pean influences have not penetrated, all creation seems 
to live in amity. The teaching of the compassionate 
Buddha, " the speechless world's interpreter," has else- 
where won for living things the same forbearance at the 
hands of other millions, and Asia thus stands apart 
from Europe as the refuge and asylum of the smaller 
worlds of creatures, harmful and harmless alike. 

This pitifulness works often to strange results. A 
man-eating tiger establishes his shambles near a village, 
but the villagers, knowing him to be an old and esteemed 
acquaintance, lately deceased, steal away from their 
hamlet and deprecate any violent dislodgment of the 
human soul from its present tiger body. Monkeys rob 
the shops in the bazaar, but who could think of reprisals 
against such holy thieves? Snakes take human life, 
but pay none in penaltj^" Elephants and cuckoos, bulls 
and tortoises, quadruped and bird, fish and reptile, all 
come in for their special honors and special privileges, 
and, when danger threatens, for special immunit3^ 

The i-ats in the Deccan in the same way enjoyed the 
full benefit of this delightful catholicity of benevolence, 
not from any virtues inherent in that forward rodent, or 
any tradition of good done to man in a former state, 
but simply from the Hindoo's tolerance of small life, 
and the contemporary growth of superstition. 

The famines that laid waste some of the fairest prov- 
inces of India had stolen from every hearth one or more 
of the familj" circle, and the peasant mind, loyal to its 
teachings, refused to believe that the loved ones had 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Bats. 257 

been lost forever. Cruel drought bound the ground as 
with u'on, and so the seed sown never gave its increase. 
Starvation crept round the hamlet, and one by one the 
weakest died. 

Yet the wheels of time rolled on, and another har- 
vest-time came round. The seasons were kindly, rain 
was abundant, and the ground returned to the sower's 
hand its hundred-fold. And back to the earth, glad with 
full harvests, crept the poor defunct. What more natural ? 

Not, of course, in the likeness of their old selves, for 
it is not given to man to live twice as man, nor yet in 
nobler form, for what had the pitiful starved dead given 
in alms to the Brahmins? So they came back to the 
world that had treated them so badly — as rats. Killed 
b}" the want of grain, the}" returned as grain devourers, 
and the round completeness of this retaliation sufficed to 
satisf}" the Hindoo mind as to the iniquity of injuring 
the still hungry victims of the great famine. That they 
suffered from their depredations, their own memorials to 
the authorities attested amply. ' ' We had promise of a 
good crop. But in came a multitude of rats, which 
have carried to their holes our ears of corn. Thus the 
morsel was taken from between our teeth, and the corn- 
stalks stand headless in the fields." The government, 
in reply, assured them of its sympath}^ assured them 
also of its knowledge of rat habits, and begged them to 
kill the rats. But there came the rub. Could a Hindoo 
who was about to be starved kill another Hindoo already 
once starved to death ? Was it not just possible that 
when he himself had been starved he might return as a 
rat? To set such a precedent might be to commit sui- 
cide while committing murder ; so they declined to kill 
the rats. 

17 



258 Unnatural mstory. 

In England the rat plague is endemic. Only the 
other day the populonsness of subterranean London was 
indicated by the disclosures connected with a case in a 
police court ; for in the evidence taken against some 
men charged with damaging the bank of the Thames 
while digging for rats, it was alleged that these creat- 
ures swarmed ' • by tens of thousands " at the mouths of 
the sewers. Here they work to admirable purpose, in 
so far as they clear refuse from the river surface, but, 
in comparison with the mischief done in accomplishing 
it, their good oflSces are seriousl}' depreciated. Few 
creatures have attained to such universal abuse as the 
rat, and few, perhaps, have deserved so much. It is 
true that its sagacity is prodigious, and ever}' one knows 
that in the East it symbolizes Ganesha, the god of wis- 
dom ; but its sagacity is so often displayed linder com- 
promising circumstances that the rat gains little respect 
for the possession of this valuable quality. It is very 
sagacious, no doubt, in an animal to dip its tail in a 
bottle of oil, and then carry its tail home to suck at 
leisure, but such larcenous refreshment will not com- 
mend itself to anj' but the disreputable. Nor is there 
much that is admirable in the wisdom which prompts 
the rat to make a wheelbarrow or truck of itself, for the 
greater convenience of removing stolen goods. It ap- 
pears that, when a gang have come ujwn a larger plun- 
der than the}' can carr}' awa}' f]'om the premises inside 
them, one of the number lies down on his back while 
the others load him up with the booty ; that he balances 
the pile with four legs, and, to make matters extra safe, 
folds his tail over the goods and holds the tip in his 
mouth, and that his pals then drag him off along the 
ground by the ears and fur ! This is excellent as far as 



Bears, Wolves, Dogs, Rats. 259 

the idea and its execution are concerned ; but, after all, 
the end to which such means are adapted — the ne- 
farious removal of another's property — is immoral, and 
unworthy of imitation. It is impossible to extend sin- 
cere admiration to so deplorable a misapplication of 
genius. 

Nor can the other virtues attributed to rats, such as 
considerate treatment of the blind among them, their 
docilitj^ under domestication, and their industry, be re- 
garded as unallo^^ed. Their industry, for instance, is 
shown by perpetual voracitj^, for the rat never ceases 
gnawing. It does not matter to the small beast what 
the substance may be, so long as its consumption does 
not immediatel}' endanger its own person, for it takes a 
house just as it comes, and, beginning at the floor of the 
cellar, goes straight through to the slates. Yet this is 
not industry, although it may look like it, for the rat 
must either nibble or die. If it were to stop nibbling, 
and thus allow its teeth to grow unchecked, they would 
soon overlap each other, and cause lock-jaw, or, as 
from accident has sometimes occurred, would continue 
to grow in a curve until they pierced the eye or the 
brain. 

On the rat's consideration for its kind, again, one might 
put a very sinister construction, for the knowledge of rat 
ways might prompt the beUef that the infirm were only 
being cared for until they became fit to eat, and that the 
jealous solicitude apparent!}' being displayed for the 
welfare of the afflicted relative was really only a series 
of selfish precautions to prevent others from surrepti- 
tiously making away with the object of their care before 
he was properly fattened for their own eating. The can- 
nibal propensity is, indeed, grossly developed among 



260 Unnatural History. 

rats. The parents eat their young, deciding for their 
offspring that death in infancy' is better than a life of 
troubles : and the young who survive, seeing around them 
so much aged misery, and deploring such a future for 
their parents, piously consume their progenitors. 

Thus too, among the earlier barbarians of the Oxus, 
did the Massagetse who, if history' has not traduced 
them, ate their infirm relatives, not from ill-will towards 
them, but as a public dnty. Every man was expected 
to devour his own parents, and the interference of a 
stranger in the solemn rite might have been rudely re- 
sented. For a conscientious family, though they would 
not probably at other times have grudged him a seat at 
their board, might on such an occasion have misunder- 
stood the stranger's offers of assistance, as reflecting 
upon their capacity to do their duty without outside 
help. 

In its origin also the race of rats resembles exactly 
those successive waves of savage humanit}^ that have 
swept westward over Europe, coming from the same 
Central Asian cradles, and tallying with them in the 
chronolog}^ of their invasions. Yet their great nation 
has also thrown out from time to time colonies of a far 
higher stamp of emigrant. Thus, though troops of rats 
followed and accompanied the Goth and the Hun and 
the Tartar, similar migrations marked also the Norman 
invasion and the Hanoverian accession. The rats, in 
fact, are the doppelgdngers of invaders generallj^, follow- 
ing the provision chests of every human exodus, barba- 
rian or otherwise ; and are the emblem not only of 
determined incursion, but permanent occupation. They 
are the tj'pe of the successful invader, sagacious in fore- 
cast, fierce in attack, and tenacious in possession. 



Bears, Wolves y Dogs, Bats. 261 

Wherever their colonies are planted, they take deep root 
at once and for ever, and the aborigines must either be 
absorbed into the conquering element, or disappear 
before it. Their motto is " Rats or nothing." Rat 
society, though thus maintaining with persistent ferocity 
the ground it has gained, and gradually extending its 
area, wiU be found, in its latest developments, to be 
everywhere representative of the most degraded classes 
of humanity. 



262 Unnatuo^al History. 



VII. 

SOME SEA-FOLK. 

Ocean-folk. — Mermaids and Manatees. — The Solemnity of 
Shapelessness. — Herds of the Sea-gods. — Sea-things. — The 
Octopus and its Kind. — Terrors of the Deep Sea. — Sea-ser- 
pents. — Credible and Incredible Varieties. — DeUghtful possi- 
bihties in Cuttle-fish. — Ancient and Fish-like Monsters. — 
Credulity as to Monsters, Disastrous. — Snakes in Legend and 
in Nature. — Mr. Ruskin on Snakes. — The Snake-folk. — 
Shesh, the Snake-god. — Primeval Turtles and their Contem- 
porary Aldermen. — Impropriety of Flippancy about Turtles. 

MERMAIDS, though still reasonably abundant at 
country fairs in Europe, appear to have be- 
come extinct in the British Isles. 

The latest authenticated appearance is that of the sup- 
posed mermaid which was discovered sporting in the 
sea off the Caithness shore, but which— by his own 
confession — turned out to be Sir Humphrey Davy 
bathing. 

Since then, there have been several claimants to the 
title, but all have collapsed under the disintegrating 
touch of scientific inquiry, w4iich, resolving the several 
compositions into their primal elements, classified them 
in detail as being part monkej^, part salmon, and part 
leather. 

Some no doubt — and I for one — regret the extinc- 
tion of the mermaid, but the less superstitious majority 
will congratulate Science on having at last reduced to 



Some Sea-Folh 263 



one or two facts all the miscellaneous congregation of 
sirens, mermaids, mermen, tritons, sea-cows, sea-swine, 
sea-horses, mer-devils, sea-lions, water-satj'rs, and Un- 
dines, — all the wilderness of aquatic prodigies deli- 
neated in Aldrovandus his "History of Monsters," or 
spoken of from eye-witness by Maundeville, Olaus 
Magnus, and many another. The sub-order of the 
Sirenia now includes all those wonderful animals that 
have given the silly world so much pleasant fable, and 
wise men so much trouble, and they are now known 
as the Rhytinidse and the Manatidse. The first are 
extinct. Like the dodos, — which were so common in 
the Mauritius, when that island was first discovered, 
that the sailors chased them about by hundreds, knock- 
ing them on the head with stones, but of which now 
there are only two beaks, one foot, and a few feathers 
to bear witness that this great bird ever existed, — the 
Rhytina Stelleri, or Northern Manatee, w^as found 
swarming in 1741 upon the shores of an island in 
Behring's Straits. For ten months the shipwrecked 
sailors entirely supported life upon its flesh and oil, and 
so it happened that when, just twentj^-seven 3'ears later, 
an expedition went out to inquire if a manatee fishery 
would be profitable, it was found that not a single spec- 
imen remained. The family of Rh3^tina had been 
actually extinguished from the world's list of living 
things in twentj'-seven years, and the only remains of 
this astonishing animal at present known to -exist are 
one skull and a few other fragments in European 
museums. Of the other sub-family, the Manatidse 
proper, manj^ species are known to naturalists, and the 
commonest of these, the manatee of the American coast, 
is called by showmen the " West India Mermaid." 



264 Unnatural History. 

Those who go to visit one, however, should dismiss 
from their minds all the fancies with which literature 
has invested these sea-folk, of ros}" mermaids golden- 
haired, and jolly mermen with Bacchus faces, crowned 
with coral. Some, no doubt, expect a shapely Triton 
with flowing beard and his conch-shell slung hy his side, 
or dainty ladj^ of those siren islands 

" Whence fairy-like music steals over the sea, 
Entrancing tlie senses with charmed melody." 

Others, on the other hand, visit it with preconceived 
ideas of some narwhal or whale creation, expecting a 
grampus-like thing, or anticipating a porpoise. But it 
is necessar}^ to approach the mermaid with an imagina- 
tion absolutely blank, for, whatever 3'ou tr}- to imagine, 
you will be utterly discomfited b}^ the realitj^ 

Who, indeed, could soberly put before his mind the 
actual features of this sea-monster, so absurd in its 
shapelessness that if it were to be exhibited dead the 
most credulous rustic would sneer at it as a clumsy 
hoax ? Even alive, the thing looks like a make-up, and 
a discreditable one ; for in places the tail and paddling- 
paws — thej^ are not fins nor yet legs — appear to have 
been injured, and the stuffing looks as if it was coming 
out. The ragged edges of the skin, if such an integu- 
ment is to be called skin, frays away into threads, and, 
if it were not that the manatee winks occasionally, the 
spectator might be justified in asserting his own ability 
to make a better monster. But it is this very simplicity 
of its composition that renders the preposterous crea- 
ture so astonishing and so absurd. Gustave Dore found 
out the secret, that, to depict the perfection of a mon- 
ster only one element of incongruous monstrosity should 



Some Sea-Folk. 265 



be utilized at a time, and the result of his knowledge 
has been his incomparable creatures of fancy. On the 
other hand, from ignorance of this rule, the prodigious 
beings of Hindoo fable are habitually stupid and foolish, 
for the artist overlaj^s his subject with such a multitude 
of deformities that the complete composition is silly and 
senseless. The Hindoos, therefore, should go to the 
manatee, and take a lesson in the wonderful effects to be 
produced by avoiding elaborateness of detail, for no- 
thing in the animal world can be imagined less diversi- 
fied in feature than this mermaid of the West Indies. 
In the lower world of creatures the slug alone presents 
us with an equally sober monotony of outline ; and 
if a seven-foot slug were sewn up in an old tarpau- 
lin, the result would be a tolerable reproduction of the 
manatee. One end would have to be flattened out into 
a gigantic beaver's tail, and the other be shaped snout- 
wise. The details of mouth, nose, e3^es, and ears might 
be left to the creature's own fancy, or to accident. 

Having no legs, it stands on its tail, and to keep its 
balance has to bend the head forward and bow the body. 
In this attitude of helpless humility the strange thing 
stands motionless many minutes together, and then, 
with a ghost-like, dreadful solemnity, it begins slowly 
to stiffen and straighten its tail, and thus, gradually 
rising into an erect posture, thrusts its nostrils above 
the surface. But onl}^ for an instant, for ere it seems 
to have had time to take a breath, the great bod}' begins 
to sink back into its despondent position, and the small 
paddling-paws drop motionless and helj)less as before. 
The deliberate sloth with which the manosuvre is exe- 
cuted has something of dignity in it, but otherwise the 
manatee is as ridiculous as it is helpless. The clumsy 



266 Unnatural History. 

snout is constantly twitching like a rabbit's, but the 
gesture that seems so appropriate in the nervous, vigi- 
lant little rodent is immeasurably ludicrous in this huge 
monstrosit3\ The eyes, again, now contracted to a pin's 
point, now expanded full to gaze at you with expression- 
less pupils, seem to move by a mechanism beyond the 
creature's control. Voiceless and limbless, the bulky 
cetacean sways to and fro, the very embodiment of 
stupid, feeble helplessness, a thing for shrimps to mock 
at and limpets to grow upon. 

A carcass of such proportions, such an appalling con- 
tour, should, to satisfy aesthetic requirements, possess 
some stupendous villany of character, should conceal 
under such an inert mass of flesh some hideous criminal 
instinct. Yet this great shapeless being, this numskull 
of the deep sea, is the most innocent of created things. 
It lives on lettuce. In its wild state it browses along the 
meadows of the ocean bed, cropping the seaweeds just 
as kine graze upon the pastures of earth, inoffensive 
and sociable, rallying as cattle do for mutual defence 
against a common danger, placing the calves in the 
middle, while the bulls range themselves on the threat- 
ened quarter. These are the herds which the poets 
make Proteus and the sea-gods tend, the harmless 
beeves with whom the sad Parthenope shared her sor- 
rows ! These are the actual realities that have given 
rise to so many a pretty fiction, the dull chrysalids from 
which have swarmed so many butterflies. 

It is disappointing to those who cherish old-world 
fancies ; but to Science the lazy, uncouth manatee is a 
precious thing. Science, indeed, has seldom had a more 
pleasing labor than the examination and identiflcation 
of this animal ; for, though so ludicrously simple in 



\ 



Some Sea-Folk. 267 



appearance, it is a veritable casket of physiological 
wonders. 

It is the only creature known that has three eyelids 
to each eye, and two hearts. In most of its points 
it bears a close affinity to the elephant, but in others 
of equal importance it is unmistakably a w^hale ! Its 
teeth, bones, and skin are all delightful studies to 
the naturalist, and he is thankful, therefore, that the 
manatee is what it is, and not the veritable mermaid 
that less prosaic minds would have it. Even these, how- 
ever, may find some consolation for the loss of their 
ocean folk in learning of the strange ways of this strange 
beast, and its tranquil life below the sea, nibbling about 
in great meadows of painted seaweed. Some travellers 
have given it a voice. Captain Colnett has left it on 
record that one remained by his ship for three hours, 
" uttering sounds of lamentation hke those produced by 
the female human voice when expressing the deepest 
distress ; " and another mariner tells us how, when sail- 
ing in an open boat, they surprised a manatee asleep, 
and, thinking it to be a merman, they hesitated to har- 
poon it, and how on a sudden the creature awoke, and 
with an angr}^ shout plunged into the depths ! Anger, 
nevertheless, appears to be utterly foreign to its charac- 
ter, for among the Malays the name of the Eastern 
species is a synonym for gentle affection, and every 
writer, from Buffon to our time, bears evidence to its 
sociability and remarkable absence of fear of men. But, 
alas for the manatee ! Its virtues are its bane, for 
whether among the West India islands or the creeks of 
the Guiana and the Brazilian coast, in the estuaries of 
the Oronoko and the Amazon, in the river-mouths 
of Western Africa, or in the archipelago of the Eastern 



268 Unnatural History. 

seas, the same fearless confidence in man is rapidly 
hastening its extinction. The flesh is excellent food, 
the blubber yields a fine oil, the skin is of valuable 
toughness, and so before long the manatee of the warm 
seas maj- be expected to be as extinct as its congener of 
the cold North, — the lost rhytina of Behring's Straits. 

Victor Hugo, in his Guernsey romance, " The Toilers 
of the Sea," presented the world with a monster, a 
terror of the deep waters, something like the gruesome 
spider-grab of Erckmann-Chatrian, but even .more hor- 
rible. It was the pieuvre, a colossal cuttle-fish, which 
had its den far down in the sea among the roots of the 
rocks ; a terrible long- armed thing that lurked in the 
caverns of the deep, grappling from its retreat w^ith any 
passing creature, paralyzing it by fastening one by one 
a thousand suckers upon it, and slowly dragging its 
victim, numbed with pain, towards the awful iron beak 
that lay in the centre of the soft, cruel arms. The 
novehst's pieuvre was hideous enough, and his descrip- 
tion surpassing in its horrors, but in Schiller's poem of 
" The Diver," a thing of similar character, but rendered 
even more awful by not being described at all, com- 
passes the death of the hero. He did not, like Victor 
Hugo's sailor, have a protracted struggle with the mys- 
terious creature, and then come back to his friends with 
details of its personal appearance, but he dived out of 
sight and never returned. Schiller does not attempt, 
therefore, to describe the indescribable thing, but simply 
calling it c?a5, throws the reader back in imagination 
upon all the horrible legends of the Mediterranean 
coasts and islands, to guess for himself the sort of 
monster it must have been that had seized the hapless 



Some Sea-Folk 269 



diver and devoured him at its leisure in the twilight 
depths of the sea. 

Such monsters as these, it has been dryly thought, 
belong only to legend and fable and poem, but this is 
not the case. Pieuvres of the Victor Hugo t^'pe, and 
'^ things" such as Schiller hints at, are, it is true, ex- 
aggerated specimens of the species, but their congeners 
— and dreadful ones, too — do actually exist, for they 
have been seen and fought with and described, and 
scientific conditions are all amiply satisfied' by those de- 
scriptions. Not long ago, a government diver at Bel- 
fast, Victoria, had a narrow escape from losing his life 
in the clutch of a huge octopus. It had seized his left 
arm, causing dreadful agony by the fastening of its 
suckers upon the limb ; but the diver had an iron bar in 
his right hand, and, after a struggle that seemed to him 
to last twenty minutes, during which the monster tried 
hard to drag him down, he battered his assailant into a 
shapeless mass, and freed himself from its horrid grasp. 
Schiller's "Taucher" had no iron bar, and his bones, 
therefore, went to increase the- heap which pieuvres, 
so Victor Hugo saj^s, accumulate at the mouths of their 
deep-sea dens. 

It is all-important, for the existence of these mon- 
strous poulpes, cuttle-fish, octopuses, or sepias, that 
Science should countenance them ; for, so long as pro- 
fessors array their calmly sceptical opinions on the one 
side, no number of sworn affidavits from the public as 
to personal encounters with the pieuvre will sufl^ice to 
establish the creature as a veritj^ In the case of that 
other terror of the ocean, the sea-serpent, science goes 
dead against its existence, and Professor Owen speaks 
far too weightily for even sober official accounts of the 



270 Unnatural History. 

great snake to be accepted as convincing evidence in its 
behalf. Thus Captain M'Quhae, of Her Majesty's ship 
" Daedalus," declared, in a report to the Admiralty thirty 
years ago, that he and his officers had seen sixty feet 
of a marine monster, with the head of a snake, under 
conditions which, taken with the trustworthiness and 
sobriety of his evidence, places the record of his en- 
counter with ' ' the great sea-serpent " above all others 
that either preceded or followed it. Yet even this 
account, so cautious in its language, and given by men 
so eminently capable of judging of objects seen at sea, 
was completel}^ met at ever}^ point by the scientific ver- 
dict of " impossible." 

That sixty-foot monsters besides whales may exist 
Professor Owen does not den}^, for have we not already 
seals of thirt}^ feet and sharks of forty, besides congws 
of unknown lengths? But he sa3's this : if sea-serpents 
have been in the seas from the first, and are still there 
in such numbers as reports would have us believe, how 
is it that no single fragment of one, fossilized or not, 
has ever yet been washed ashore or dug up ? The nega- 
tive evidence from the utter absence of &uy remains 
weighs, therefore, with the scientific mind, and ought 
also with public opinion, against even such positive evi- 
dence as that of the commander of the " Dsedalus ; " for, 
after all, just as positive evidence from just as trust- 
worthy witnesses abounds for the proof of ghosts. So 
the grand old kraken, the great sea- worm, remains still 
without identit}^ ; and though I trust humanity will 
never abandon any of its " glorious old traditions," es- 
pecially such a fascinating one as the sea-serpent, I 
would caution it in the matter of any kraken professing 
to be more than a hundred 3^ards long, lest it should be 



Some Sea-Folk. 271 



said of them that they prefer "the excitement of the 
imagination to the satisfaction of the judgment." 

For monster cuttle-fishes, however, the pubhc has the 
permission of science to believe anything it likes ; and, 
in fact, the more the better. It may swell out the bag- 
like bodies of the poulpe to any dimensions consistent 
with the containing capacities of an ocean, and pull out 
their arms until, like Denys de Montford's octopus, they 
are able to twist one tentacle round each of the masts 
of a Hne-of-battle ship, and, holding on with the rest to 
the bottom of the sea, to engulf the gallant vessel with 
all sail set. Science is helpless to oppose the belief in 
such monsters, for they are scientifically possible, and, 
from the sizes already recorded, there is no limit rea- 
sonably assignable to their further extension, so that 
everybody is at liberty to revel ' ' by authority '* in cut- 
tle-fishes as big as possible. The Victorian octopus re- 
ferred to above measured only eight feet, but this proved 
almost-, sufficient to kill a strong man, while the body 
belonging to a specimen of such dimensions would have 
been quite heavy enough, had the arms once fairly 
grappled the ^dctim, to sink him to the bottom of the 
sea, where, anchoring itself by its suckers to a rock in 
the sea-bed, the monster could have eaten its prey at 
leisure. The octopus, moreover, is very active, as the 
nature of its usual food — fishes and crustaceans — re- 
quires it should be ; and the danger, therefore, to man, 
from the huge specimens which travellers have recorded 
— that of M. Sander Rang, for instance, the body of 
which was as large 'as "a large cask" — would be 
very terrible indeed ; but fortunately gigantic specimens, 
though indisputably existing, are not common on popu- 
lous coasts. 



272 Unnatural History. 

In a paper once read to the British Association by 
Colonel Smith, the writer adduced man}' instances of 
colossal sepias, among them an enormit}^ of forty 
feet, and another, hardly less, of which fragments are 
preserved in the Haarlem Museum. General Eden re- 
cords one of over twenty feet in length, and another 
creature of the same order, taken up on a ship at sea, 
which had arms that measured no less than thirty-six 
feet. In this way, increasing foot by foot, each en- 
larging specimen becomes a possibilit}', until at last 
there would be no reason for disbelieving even that 
wonderful story of Captain Blaney, who mistook a dead 
cuttle-fish for a bank, and landed on it with sixt}^ men ! 
But this was of course very long ago indeed, and may 
now be relegated to the limbo of Pontoppidan's famous 
monsters, — the krakens with lions' manes, that got up 
on end and roared, and pieuvres that hunted ships at 
sea. If ever, however, the cuttle fish should reach its 
fullest length and greatest bulk, the sea-serpent itself 
would have but a poor chance with it, so that we have, 
after all, the satisfaction of knowing that, though science 
forbids ns to possess a kraken, we do possess in actual 
fact another monster which, if the kraken did exist, 
could probably catch it and eat it up. 

Sea-serpents, in spite of repeated efforts to obtain re- 
spectable recognition, have been hitherto regarded as 
mythical. For one thing, they showed no judgment in 
the selection of individuals to whom to exhibit them- 
selves ; and the testimony of their existence afforded hy 
the masters of ships unknown on Lloyd's registers, and 
by American captains ' ' of undoubted veracity " served 
only to plunge the monsters of the deep seas more pro- 



I 



Some Sea-Folk. 273 



foLindly into the obscurity of fable. Their opportuni- 
ties for declaring themselves have been many, but they 
have preferred to come to the surface only when un- 
scientific and untrustworthy witnesses happened to be 
passing overhead. A score of appearances of the sea- 
serpent have been recorded in as many years, but not 
one has gained credence, because, in the first place, of 
this defect in the credibility of the narrators, and in 
the next, because each man described such a difierent 
monster. 

The whole marine fauna, from the narwhal to the 
octopus, was drawn upon for contributions to the hybrid 
thing which we were asked to believe was the veritable 
kraken ; but when all the tusks and tails, legs and 
manes, fiery ej-es and scales, horses' heads and wings 
came to be fitted on to a serpentine form of prodigious 
bulk and length, the miscellaneous result was so out- 
rageous that credulity was staggered, and men, in de- 
spair, refused to believe even in a decent sea-serpent, 
or an}' sea-serpent at all. 

A moderate animal of about fifty or a hundred feet in 
length, with the girth of an average barrel or two, and, 
say, half-a-dozen plausible propellers or even a twin 
screw, with a respectable snake's head at one end and 
coming to a proper point at the other, — such a creature 
would have been admitted into every household as an 
article of belief, and have largelj^ assisted in developing 
the young idea as to Behemoth and Leviathan and the 
other wonders of the sea, which, in default of a definite 
beast, have so long loomed hazity in the child-mind 
as mere figures of speech. When, however, we were 
gravel}'' asked to introduce to the notice of our school- 
children a heterogeneous patchwork monstrosity that 

18 



274 Unnatural History. 

stood up from its middle to rest its chin on the topgal- 
lant- stunsail-boom of a three-masted ship ; that spouted 
and roared at one end and lashed up the sea into little 
bubbles at the other ; that reared horned heads out of 
water, glaring the while with e^'es of flame upon the 
trembling mariners, shaking aloft a more than leonine 
mane of hair, and paddling in the air with great up- 
lifted paws, — parents, I think did well to warn off so 
disreputable an apparition from the sacred ground of 
infant schools and nurseries, and the scientific world 
showed judgment in withdrawing its approbation from 
such a disorganizing beast. 

Nature insists upon her proprieties being observed, 
and so long as man remembers this, his zoological be- 
liefs will remain fit to lie upon ever}^ breakfast table. 

But if once we fall from the strict paths of possibilitj', 
our facts become improbable, and there will be an in- 
rush of creatures trampling across, flying over, and 
swimming through every rule of natural history, every 
law of creation. If once the key is turned to let in 
these disturbing dualities, a mob of indeterminate 
things — gryphons and sphinxes, basilisks and dragons, 
wolf-men and vampires, unicorns and cockatrices — will 
crowd into the orderly courts of knowledge, and, break- 
ing down all the bulwarks of our rational beliefs, will seat 
themselves triumphantly among the ruins of science ! 

No such dismal prospect of scientiflc chaos need, how- 
ever, be entertained from the latest appearance of the 
sea-serpent, an animal which, from its description, would 
seem one that ma}' be confidently admitted into the best 
conducted families as an article of household faith. 
Captain Cox, master of the British ship " Privateer," 
states that a hundred miles west of Brest, at five o'clock 



Some Sea-Folh. ' 275 



on the afternoon of a fine, clear da}^, he saw, some three 
hundred yards off, about twenty feet of a black snake- 
like body, three feet in diameter, moving through the 
water towards his ship. As it approached, he distinctly 
perceived its eel-like head and its eyes ; but the sea- 
serpent, when it got so close as this, took fright and 
plunged with a great splash under the water, and then, 
turning itself round with a mighty disturbance of the 
sea, made off, raising its head frequentl}'' as it went. 
Now, here there is no extraordinary demand made upon 
credulity-, for the merest infant can comfortably enter- 
tain the idea, in twent3'-foot lengths, at any rate, of a 
snake as thick as an eighteen-gallon cask. The color, 
too, is simple black, and the head has no features more 
surprising than ej^es. 

The great sea-serpent, therefore, is, after all, found to 
come within the compass of the ordinary human under- 
standing, and we are not asked to believe in more than 
a somewhat magnified conger-eel. In behavior, also, 
the present animal differs agreeabl}^ and rationally from 
all preceding avatars of the great sea-worm, as the 
Danes call it ; for except that it splashed extravagantly 
when it turned round in the water, it did not demean 
itself otherwise than might respectably be permitted to 
a snake of such dimensions. At the same time, how- 
ever, such is the weakness of human nature, there will 
be vestiges of regret for the turbulent, ill-behaved mon- 
strosity^ that has hitherto done duty as the sea-serpent. 
The present worm is perhaps just a little too tame. If 
it had onl}^ shown a scale or two, or sparkled slightly at 
the nostrils, or betraj^ed some tendency towards horns 
or claws, shaken just a little mane, — not too much, of 
course, — or snorted, or brayed, or even squeaked mod- 



276 Unnatural History. 

erately, we should have been better satisfied. We should 
have felt that we had got something. As it is, we have 
got only a huge eel, — no crest of hair, no flames, no 
ravening jaws, — a dull eel, too, that behaved with dis- 
appointing respectabilit}', not even rising to a spout or 
a roar. It kept itself horizontal on the water, instead 
of standing on one end, and when it wished to go in 
the opposite direction, did so 'by the ordinary process of 
moving round, instead of leaping dolphin-wise or turn- 
ing a prodigious somersault. All this is discouraging, 
but it is an ill-conditioned mind 'that cannot accept the 
inevitable with composure, and, after all, half a sea- 
serpent is better than none. 

For until his latest revelation, we had really no sea- 
serpent to speak of; and now that we have at least 
twenty feet well authenticated, we ma}' rest for the time 
contented. The only consolation is that the rest of the 
Soe Ormen may one day more completely fulfil our aspi- 
rations for something to wonder at and disbelieve in ; 
for who can tell what singnlarities of contour remained 
hidden in the sea when the commonplace head and 
shoulders were exposed, or who even can guess at the 
length of the whole? Delightful possibilities, therefore, 
still remain to us ; and, while we can safely add one end 
of the new monster to our marine zoolog}^ we can 
cling with the other to all the fauna of old-world fancy . 
Twenty feet of an eel need not prevent us hoping for 
another hundred of something else ; nor are we com- 
pelled from so commonplace a commencement to argue 
a commonplace termination. Meanwhile, we have a 
solid instalment of three fathoms of a sea-serpent to 
work upon, and it will be discreditable to national en- 
terprise if something more — and a great deal more, 
too — does not come of it before long. 



Some Sea- Folk. 277 



Favorable to such discovery is the habitat now as- 
signed to the great conger, for it lies on the highway 
of our commerce. Hitherto, fiords on the Scandinavian 
coast, the headlands of Greenland, and other unfre- 
quented waterways have been selected by krakens and 
aaletusts for their exhibitions ; and though Danes, 
Swedes, and Norsemen generalh' have long believed in 
the existence of these monsters of the deep, their haunts 
were so much out of the way of regular sea traffic, that 
only fishermen, the most superstitious and credulous of 
mankind, could say they had actually seen them. Now 
and again a glimpse was said to have been caught in 
more accessible waters of some bulk}- thing answering 
in length of body to the description of a serpent, but 
flaws in the Evidence always marred the value of the 
great vision. Six hundred feet of one, was, for in- 
stance, recorded off the English coast, but here the 
length alone sufficed to quench belief; while the other, 
with eyes "large and blue, like a couple of pewter 
plates," found basking off the shore of Norwa^^, was 
discredited by its possessing legs. Exactl}^ a hundred 
years ago a whole ship's crew vouched for the following 
awful apocal3^pse of the terrors of the sea : '* A hundred 
fathoms long, with the head of a horse ; the mouth large 
and black, and a white mane hanging from the neck. 
It raised itself so high that it reached above the top 
of the mast, and it spouted water like a whale ; " and, 
what is more, the skipper shot it ! 

Captain Cox, then, will have to work hard before he 
can bring his worm abreast of so thrilling a creature ; 
but, meanwhile, he has commenced well. To him we 
owe the latest confirmation of one of the oldest of the 
world's superstitions, and though, in confirming it, he 



278 Unnatural History. 

has divested the thing of our fancy of all that made it 
precious, he has given us in place of the rampageous 
sea-serpent of our ancestors, tinkered out of scraps 
from half the beasts in nature, a plausible and well-con- 
ducted eel. Asa first attempt at a sea-serpent fit to be 
figured in a standard book it is commendable, but what 
I should like to see now is — the other end of it. 

It is one of the disappointments of my life that I 
have never heard Mr. Ruskin lecture on Snakes. Both 
the subject and the lecturer present to the imagination 
such boundless possibihties that no one could guess 
where the snakes would take Mr. Ruskin before he had 
done with them, or where Mr. Ruskin would take the 
snakes. Without a horizon on any side of him, the 
speaker could hold high revel among a multitude of de- 
lightful phantasies, and make holiday with all the beasts 
of fable. Ranging from Greek to Saxon and from Latin 
to Norman, Mr. Ruskin could traverse all the cloud- 
lands of mj'th and the solid fields of history, lighting the 
way as he went with felicitous glimpses of a wise fancy, 
and bringing up in quaint disorder, and yet in order too, 
all the grotesque things that heraldry owns and the old 
world in daj's past knew so much of: the wyvern, with 
its vicious aspect but inadequate stomach ; the spiny and 
alwaj's rampant dragon-kind ; the h3xlra, that unhappy 
beast which must have suffered from so many headaches 
at once, and been racked at times, no doubt, with a mul- 
titudinous toothache ; the crowned basilisk, king of the 
reptiles and chiefest of vermin ; the gorgon, with snakes 
for hair, and the terrible echidna ; the cockatrice, fell 
worm, whose first glance was petrifaction, and whose 
second, death ; the salamander, of such subtle sort that 



Some Sea-Folk. 279 



he digested flames ; the chimgera, shapeless \Qi deadly ; 
the dread cerastes ; the aspic, pretty worm of Nilus, 
but fatal as lightning and as swift ; and the dypsas, 
whose portentous aspect sufficed to hold the path 
against an arm}' of Rome's choicest legions. All these, 
and many more, are at the lecturer's service as he 
travels from age to age of serpent adoration, and turns 
with skilful hand the different facets of his diamond 
subject to the listener's ear. From astronomy, where 
Serpentarius, baleful constellation, glitters, and refulgent 
Draco rears his impossible but delightful head, the 
speaker could run through all the forms of dragon 
idealism, recalling to his audience as he went on his 
way, beset with unspeakable monsters, the poems of 
Greek and of older mythologies, and touching on our 
own fictions of asp and adder, and other strange reptile 
things, — defining, however, ah the while, with the bold 
outlines of a master-hand, the vast scheme of creation, 
■ wherein the chain of resemblance is never snapped and 
like slides into like, until the whole stands revealed 
complete, a puzzle for the grown-up children of men to 
put together in a thousand different ways, but one which 
will never fit in properl}^, piece to piece, unless the ulti- 
mate design be a perfect circle, a serpent with its tail 
in its mouth, a coil without a break. Fresh, racy 
morals, too, are to be drawn from the reptile kind ; so 
that, though on an excursion into strange lands, and 
seeing only the strangest creatures in them, an audience 
might understand, even in such fantastic company, that 
the whole of them — the flowers that were snakes, and 
the birds that were beasts, and many things that were 
neither one nor the other — fitted in somehow or other, 
by hook or by crook, by tooth or by nail, into a com- 
prehensive scheme of unitj^ 



280 Unnatural History. 

What a subject, indeed, for such a lecturer to choose ; 
Professor Huxley once selected the snake theme, and, 
bringing to bear on it all the vast resources of his 
scientific mind, made the topic instinct with interest. 
There yet remained, however, for Mr. Ruskin's magic, 
ample space and verge for holiday-making, for just as it 
was with the chimsera in Coleridge's problem, that went 
bombonating, (booming like a bumble-bee) in space, so 
there is such a prodigious quantity of room to spare in 
the realms of snake fancy that no lecturer need fear to 
come into colhsion with any solids, let him dissipate as 
he will. Again, it happens that nearly all the world of 
myths converges upon, or radiates from, the great ser- 
pent fact ; so that Mr. Ruskin, sitting in the very centre 
of the fdAYj web, could shake as he liked all the strands 
to its utmost circumference. Seated b}' the shores of 
old romance, he could at any time have thrown his peb- 
bles where he w^ould, certain of raising ripples every- 
where, and of disturbing from each haunted reed-bed 
flocks of fabled things. But how much greater was his 
power of raising these spirits of past story when he 
circled over the same regions of imagination bestriding 
a winged snake — churning up the old w^aters with a 
Shesh of his own, and summoning into sight at the 
sound of his pipe all the mystery-loving reptiles of 
mythology, like one of the old Psylli or the Marmarids, 
or one of the Magi, sons of Chus, " tame, at whose 
voice, spellbound, the dread cerastes la}'." 

Eastern charmers, with their bags of battered snakes, 
not a tooth among them all, become very poor impostors 
indeed, compared with our modern master of reptile 
manipulation. The Hindoo's snakes are feeble, jaded 
vermin, sick of the whole exhibition as mere ill-timed 



Some Sea-Folk. 281 



foolery, tired of the everlasting old pipe that they have 
to get up to dance to, and weary of longing for just one 
hour of vigorous youth, when their poison fangs were 
still in their jaws, that they might send the old man 
who charms them to his forefathers in exactly twenty 
minutes by the clock. But Mr. Ruskin works only 
with fresh-caught subjects, or, at any' rate, with old 
subjects so revivified that they leap from under his hand, 
each of them a surprise. The wise snakes of Colchis 
and of Thebes and of Delphi — I need not identify 
them more exactly — fall briskly into their places in the 
ring of the creative S3'stem, and every flower furnishes 
forth a P^'thonissa to tell our new Apollo the secrets of 
a new cult. Does genius feed on snakes, that it never 
grows old? The ancients said that the flesh of the 
ophidians, though the deadliest of created things, gave 
eternal j^outh, and even cured death, itself ; and, though 
fatal as the shears of Atropos, the poison of asps was 
the supreme drug in the cabinet of the God of Doctors. 

Even to our own day the legend comes down, tamed 
of course to suit the feeble representatives of the ser- 
pent kind that are found in this countr}^ ; for in English 
folk-lore it is an article of belief that the flesh of vipers 
is an antidote to their poison, and that, though " the 
beauteous adder hath a sting, it bears a balsam too." 
All dangerous swellings also, such as erysipelas and 
goitres, may be cured, it is satisfactory to know on 
rustic authorit}^, by eating a viper from the tail upwards, 
like a carrot ; or, simpler still, by rubbing the aff'ected 
part with a harmless grass-snake, and; then burying the 
worm alive in a bottle. But the justice here appears to 
me very defective, and will no doubt recall that duel the 
other day, where two women went out to fight "for all 



282 Unnatural History. 

the world like men." They exchanged shots, and one 
bullet taking effect on a neighbor's bo}^, as he was 
scrambling through the hedge, and the other having hit 
a cow that was looking over the gate, the seconds de- 
clared that honor was satisfied. I recommend, there- 
fore, that when the snake has effected the cure, it should 
not be bottled and buried, but should be put back into 
some bank or hedgerow to carry on its useful war 
against snails and slugs and worms. 

There are few things a snake has not been found at 
one time or another to resemble, and there is nothing 
apparently that a snake is not able to do — except 
swallow a porcupine. One species, a native of Assam, 
is in itself an epitome of all the vices ; for in its vindic- 
tive ferocity it not only stalks its pre}^ and pounces upon 
it, but chases it swiftl}', and tracks it like a bloodhound, 
relentlessly, drives it up trees, and climbs after it like 
a squirrel, hunts it into rivers, and dives after it like a 
seal, gets up on one end to pick it off a perch, or 
grovels like a mole after it if it tries to escape by tun- 
nelling in the earth. So, at any rate, the Assamese say, 
and their word is as good as that of the Greeks in the 
matter of snakes. What awful parallels in the past, 
again, can be found in Nature adequate to the tales of 
terror that travellers have had to tell of the python 
which arrests in full career the wind-footed bison, of the . 
boa-constrictor, that hurls itself from overhanging rocks 
and trees in coils of dreadful splendor upon even the 
jaguar and the puma, of the anaconda, the superb dic- 
tator of the Brazilian forests ! Do the hydras, dragons, 
or chimseras of antiquity surpass these three in terrors ? 
Nor among the lesser evils of the serpent folk of old, 
the cockatrices, basilisks, and asps, do we find any to 



Some Sea-Folk. 283 



surpass our own life-shattering worms, the cobra or the 
rattlesnake. 

The snakes of antiquity, it is true, have come down 
to us dignified and made terrible by the honors and 
fears of past ages, when the Egj^ptians and the Greeks 
bound the aspic round the heads of their idols as the 
most regal of tiaras, and crowned in fancy the adder 
and the cerastes ; when nations tenanted their sacred 
groves with even more sacred serpents, entrusted to 
their care all that kings held most precious and the 
gems that were still undug, confided the diamond mines 
to one and — more valued then than diamonds — the 
carbuncle to another, deifj'ing some of their worms, 
and giving the names of others to their gods. But the 
actual facts known to science of modern snakes, the 
deadlier sorts of the ophidians, invest them with terrors 
equal to any creatures of fable, and with the supersti- 
tious might entitle them to equal honors with the past 
objects of Ammonian worship and still the reverence of 
all Asia, the central figures in the rites of Ops or Ther- 
muthis, or whatever we may call the old gods now. 

Science has now driven out Superstition, planting a 
more beautiful growth of beliefs in its place, and of 
these beliefs Mr. Ruskin is the trustee and the python, 
the oracle, the artistic Apollo. 

It is one of the penalties of extended empire that 
frontiers shall be constantly vexed, just as the sea 
along its margin is forever astir. But it is seldom that 
duties as a Great Power bring a nation into reluctant 
collision with such a strange, half-mythical folk as the 
Nagas of the northeastern frontiers of India with 
whom the English have periodically to fight. The Af- 



284 Unnatural History. 

ghan hills were picturesque enough, and the rolling 
grass lands of Zululand were instinct with romance ; 
yet neither Afghan nor Zulu can claim a tithe of the 
superstitious obscurity of the dwellers on the Naga 
hills, or affect pretensions to half their traditions. 
Indeed, what people on earth would dare to measure 
pedigrees with the snake-folk, or count ancestors 
against a race who claim to have a lineal descent from 
before the creation of man ? 

There are gaps, it is true, in the chain that would 
suffice to break even a herald's heart ; but what else 
could be expected in the family trees of tribes that 
were old wheu the children of the Sun and the Moon, in 
the first generation, found them possessing the earth ? 
Their progenitors flourished even before time and 
space had established their empire, and they count 
among the events of their national history the birth of 
the Creator. 

Before history commences, and when gods were half 
men, and men were demigods, the Nagas inhabited 
India. They were contemporaries of the p3'gmies who 
fought with the partridge-folk for possession of the 
Ganges' banks ; contemporaries of the monkey races 
that furnished long-tailed contingents to the conquering 
arm}' of Rama, and gave deities to India ; contempo- 
raries of Garud, king of the bird-gods, and of Indra and 
Krishna, and all the merry-making pantheon of Vedic 
Hindostan. But there came from over the hill passes 
on the northwest, which nowada3^s men call the Khyber 
and the Kurram, nation after nation of Arj^ans, who, as 
moon-children and sun-children, fell upon the aborigi- 
nes, and drove them from every spot worth possessing. 

They hunted them to the tops of the mountains, and 



Some Sea-Folk 285 



into the veiy hearts of the forests, and, adding insult 
to injury, nicknamed the dispossessed people snakes, 
monkej^s, and devils, representing them in their histor}^ 
as only half human, and thus hoped, no doubt, to jus- 
tify their ill-treatment of them. Here and there these 
aboriginal tribes are still to be found in fragments, as 
primitive to-day as they were when first the Aryan in- 
vaders pretended to mistake them for wild beasts and 
vermin. Thus, in the northeastern corner of India are 
the Nagas, the Snakes, a medley of small tribes without 
cohesion, or even the power of cohesion, professing 
allegiance, in this nineteenth century of ours, some of 
them to potentates long ago extinct, others to the 
Empire of Burmah. The authorit}^ of British India is, 
of course, gradually becoming familiar to them and, 
ver}^ gradually also, being admitted ; but it is prob- 
able that when the Afghan hills have become as settled 
as the Punjab, and Zululand as commonplace as Natal, 
the Nagas will still be found cherishing those wild 
notions of aboriginal independence that have made their 
reclamation seem so hopeless. 

How can they ever consent to the dry formalities of 
civilization and the reign of law so long as they believe 
that Shesh, the great serpent, lies coiled under their 
hills, — governing the upper earth through his snake- 
limbed lieutenants, and recording his impressions of 
terrestrial affairs by the lustre of a great gem, the kan- 
thi-stone, which he has erected in insolent revenge to 
light up his subterranean kingdom when he was driven 
from the sunhght by the more powerful gods of the 
Aryans ? 

This Shesh is a reptile worthj^ of homage, and maybe 
accepted without hesitation and in defiance of all sea- 



286 Unnatural History. 

serpents, past and future, as the greatest snake on re- 
cord. When Vishnu and the gods met to extort from 
the sea the ichor of immortalit}^, they plucked up from 
.the Himalaj^an range the biggest mountain in it, and 
ithis they made their churn, while round it, as the 
strongest tackle they could think of, they bound the 
serpent Shesh. And the gods took hold of the head 
and the devils took hold of the tail, and, alternately tug- 
ging, they made the mountain spin round and round 
until the sea was churned into froth, and from the churn- 
ing came up all the treasures of the deep, and the most 
precious possessions of man, and last of all immortality. 
The gods and thre devils scrambled for the good things, 
but nothing more is said of the serpent who had been 
so useful, nor what he got for his services. Antiquaries 
in the West incline to tliink that he remained in the sea 
and became the kraken, but the Nagas believe him to be 
still under their hills, dispensing fate by the light of a 
diamond. When this misconception is removed from 
their minds the Nagas may be able to remark other 
errors of their beliefs and ways ; but meanwhile they are 
in utter heathendom, and as delightfully free from mis- 
givings with regard to their methods of asserting their 
liberty as are the tigers, rhinoceroses, elephants, buf- 
faloes, or wild pigs that share their beautiful country 
with them. 

While disciplined troops were being equipped with 
scientific weapons, and the machinery of a great gov- 
ernment was slowly set in motion, the naked Nagas 
were squatting on their hillsides, taking augury from 
the flight of jungle-cocks. The British soldiers marched 
as military science dictated, but the Nagas shaped their 
course from or towards us at the dictation of their 



^mt 



Some Sea-Folk, 287 



omens — passing deer or falling reeds. On the one side 
there were Sniders and mountain guns, and on the other 
spears and daos. So it took httle prophesying to fore- 
tell, that, let the cocks fly as they would, and the reeds 
fall to the right or to the left, the snake-men had a 
troubled season before them, and Shesh another sad ex- 
perience to record on his gem-lit page. 

Much has been written and said about the amiable 
reptile which men call a turtle ; but man}^, I regret to 
say, have approached the subject in a spirit of levity 
which is very unbecoming. To be flippant about turtles 
is as intolerable as if one were to be frivolous about 
aldermen. 

Even in his native waters the turtle is not of a light- 
hearted kind, for his gestures are solemn and his de- 
meanor circumspect. His spirits never rise to the 
frolicking point. In captivity the creature assumes a 
sepulchral deliberation in manner, and his natural so- 
briet}^ deepens at times into positive dejection. He 
prowls about on tip-toes as if contemplating a bur- 
glary, and never betrays any symptoms of alacrity or 
enthusiasm. 

Death, however, gloriously transfigures the turtle. 
The poor, moping thing which when alive ate even grass 
apologetically, which seemed always pleading for for- 
bearance and proclaiming itself humble, is at once can- 
onized by the simple process of cooking. The despised 
worm that yesterday nibbled the herbage at our feet 
soars to-day a butterfl}^ above our heads. The martyr 
has become a saint. Festivitj^ and luxury hasten to 
greet when dead the creature they laughed at when 
living ; and the modest turtle which in the morning was 



288 Unnatural History. 

the sport of children is in the evening the favorite dish 
of princes. The lesser planets of the culinary firma- 
ment revolve round it in deferential orbits, confessing 
that their light is borrowed, that a greater attraction 
than their own holds the guests in station and regulates 
the festive board. No wonder, then, that the East be- 
lieves this creature is an embodiment of the Divinity, 
and that the world rests upon a tortoise ! The splendid 
significance of the Vedic legend is not less striking than 
its beauty, for here we see at once that the alderman 
keeps up the price of turtle, which keeps up the weight 
of the earth, and so the alderman himself becomes an 
avatar of the solar myth. Thus does history work in 
cycles and a pagan religion stand revealed. 

It would be a nice point to decide w^hether the alder- 
man was created for the turtle or the turtle for the alder- 
man. Much is to be said on both sides. It is difficult 
to imagine either of them preceding the other in point of 
time, and equally difficult to consider them as eternally 
co-existent in point of space. Yet they must have been 
both contemporary and contiguous from the beginning of 
time, or else w^e are confronted with the preposterous 
problem of aldermen apart from turtles. Who knows 
when either began ; or, if they proceeded from matter at 
diflferent spots on the earth's surface? Who can tell us 
what natural forces first brought them into contact ? 

For myself I dare not trust m}' imagination in such 
depths of conjecture, but prefer, more comfortably, to 
avoid the difficulty, and to believe that aldermen and 
turtles were simultaneous. The primitive alderman, it 
is certain, could not have eaten up the original turtle, or 
the species would then and there, in that one disastrous 
meal, have become extinct. He spared it until it laid 



Some Sea-Folh 289 



eggs, and then he ate it. When he died he bequeathed 
the secret to his son, who, becoming an alderman in due 
time, ate turtles likewise, and so on to the present day. 
The civic soup may therefore be added to the many 
other remarkable survivals of instinct in a species long 
after the necessit}^ for its exercise has died out. 

We, for instance, see the pensive bear dancing in 
public places, lifting up its hind feet one after the other 
in mechanical alternation, and holding its fore paws off 
the ground altogether, and we forget perhaps at first 
why it does so. The truth is that dancing is associated 
in Bruin's memory with the hot plates on which he was 
taught to dance, and no sooner therefore does he hear 
the tune pla3'ed which once was the signal for the fire to 
be lit beneath him, than by instinct he gets up on his 
hind legs and keeps moving" them one after the other off 
the surface which he still imagines is being heated. It 
does not matter to him that neither the countr}^ green 
nor the provincial market-place is fitted up with ovens 
for baking bears, for the original association of a certain 
tune with certain hot sensations on the soles of his feet 
is too strong for him, and he proceeds to dance. In the 
same way the alderman, feeling hungry, looks round for 
a turtle. It is not because this excellent reptile is the 
only edible thing obtainable, but because hunger, an in- 
herited sensation, is associated in his mind by indis- 
soluble bonds of -memory with turtle fat. 

Once upon a time, in the age of Diluvia and Catas- 
trophe, the primeval aklerman, being unclothed, fled the 
vertical rays of the sun, and, seeking shelter in the 
umbrageous swamp, saw there the pristine turtle. Sit- 
ting aloof he watched the creature crawKng painfully 
about, and noted that it was a thing of inconsiderable 

19 



290 Unnatural History . 

agilit}^ and suitable, therefore, to be a easy prey. Be- 
ing himself of aldermanic proportions, he was averse to 
arduous exercise ; so he surveyed the turtle, pleased. 
Anon he grew hungry, and hunger arousing him to 
comparative activity, he circumvented the unsuspecting 
turtle, that is to sa}^, he got between it and the water, 
and soon made a prisoner of the slowly moving thing. 
Examination increased his satisfaction, for he found the 
turtle carried its own soup tureen on its back, and there 
and then, gathering in his simple way a few sticks from 
the adjoining brake, this primeval alderman enjoyed the 
delights of green- fat soup, — calling it, in his barbarous 
but expressive dialect, callipee, and the outer integu- 
ments of more solid meat which he found upon the 
stomach, callipash. So ever afterwards when he felt 
hungry, and too lazy to pick acorns, he circumvented a 
turtle. 

Since then, of course, many years have past. Alder- 
men now wear clothes, and need not go about catching 
their meals, and the umbrageous swamps of a tertiary 
Britain are now the site of the cit}^ of London ; but the 
old instinct, as we perceive, still survives, and the hun- 
gry alderman always calls for turtle. 

Nor could the civic magnate do better. Some viands 
that have long been traditional for their excellence have 
ceased to be paraded on high da3^s, and, to omit the 
more recondite, I need only cite the, swan, once the 
dish of honor at eyevj public feast ; the hog barbecued ; 
the ox roasted whole ; the peacock garnished with his 
tail and russet pippins ; the sturgeon and the stuffed 
pike ; the bedizened boar's head. Each had conspicu- 
ous merits, and there are still those who maintain that 
the new meats cannot compare with the old. Let this 



Some Sea-Folk. 291 



be as it may, the turtle need never fear rivahy, and the 
alderman need never dread its extinction. In the seas 
of Florida alone it swarms in such prodigious quantity 
that well-authenticated cases are on record of small craft 
having to heave to until a shoal had passed, while in the 
remoter corners of the earth it still luxuriates in all its 
pristine multitudes, unthinned by capture and unmo- 
lested by man. 

So long, therefore, as the alderman will remain con- 
stant to his soup, his soup will never desert him. 

It is touching but strange that two species so widely 
separated, or, at any rate, so distantly connected as the 
common councilman and the common turtle, should 
display this mutual sj^mpathy. 

The latter is rather an ungainly animal, full in the 
stomach and short-legged, moving on rough ground 
with great difficulty. It is described in works on natural 
history as having a short round snout, a wide mouth, 
and a body very wide across the shoulders. It is 
further described as being ver}^ voracious. Yet there 
is nothing in these traits of person and character to 
detract from its estimable properties as an article of 
diet ; and so long as it continues to secrete green fat, 
aldermen should not quarrel with the turtle either for 
the shortness of its legs or the rotundity of its body or 
the gluttony of its appetite. 



PART IV. 
IDLE HOURS UNDER THE PUNKAH. 



I 



PART lY. 
IDLE HOURS UNDER THE PUNKAH. 

I. 

THE MAN-EATING TREE.^ 

PEREGRINE ORIEL, my maternal uncle, was a 
great traveller, as his prophetical sponsors at the 
font seemed to have guessed he would be. Indeed he 
had rummaged in the garrets and cellars of the earth 
with something more than ordinary diligence. But in 
the narrative of his travels he did not, unfortunatel3s 

1 Before committing this paper to the ridicule of the Great 
Mediocre — for many, I fear, will be inclined to regard this story 
as incredible — I would venture on the expression of an opinion 
regarding credulity, which I do not remember to have met before. 
It is this. Placing supreme Wisdom and supreme Unwisdom at 
the two extremes, and myself in the exact mean between them, I 
am surprised to find that, whether I travel towards the one ex- 
treme or the other, the credulity of those I meet increases. To 
put it as a paradox — whether a man hefoolisher or loiser than I am, he is 
more credulous. 1 make this remark to point out to those of the 
Great Mediocre, whose notice it may have escaped, that credulity 
is not of itself shameful or contemptible, and that it depends upon 
the manner rather than the matter of their belief, whether they 
gravitate towards the sage or the reverse way. According, there- 
fore, to the incredibility found in the following, the reader may 
measure, as pleases him, his wisdom or his unwisdom. 



296 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

preserve the judicious caution of Xenophon between 
the thing seen and the thing heard, and thus it came 
about that the town-councillors of Brunsbiittel (to whom 
he had shown a duck-billed plat3'pus, caught alive by 
him in Australia, and who had him posted for an im- 
porter of artificial vermin) were not alone in their scep- 
ticism of some of the old man's tales. 

Thus, for instance, who could hear and believe the 
tale of the man-sucking tree from which he had barely 
escaped with life ? He called it himself more terrible 
than the Upas. "This awful plant, that rears its 
splendid death-shade in the central solitude of a Nubian 
fern forest, sickens by its unwholesome humors all 
vegetation from its immediate vicinity, and feeds upon 
the wild beasts that, in the terror of the chase, or the 
heat of noon, seek the thick shelter of its boughs ; upon 
the birds that, flitting across the open space, come 
within the charmed circle of its power, or innocently 
refresh themselves from the cups of its great waxen 
flowers ; upon even man himself when, an infrequent 
prey, the savage seeks its as3lum in the storm, or turns 
from the harsh foot- wounding sword-grass of the glade, 
to pluck the wondrous fruit that hang plumb down among 
the wondrous foliage." And such fruit! — "glorious 
golden ovals, great honey drops, swelling by their own 
weight into pear-shaped translucencies. The foliage 
glistens with a strange dew, that all day long drips 
on to the ground below, nurturing a rank growth of 
grasses, which shoot up in places so high that their 
spikes of fierce blood-fed green show far up among the 
deep-tinted foliage of the terrible tree, and, like a jealous 
body-guard, keep concealed the fearful secret of the 
charnel-house within, and draw round the black roots 



The Man-Eating Tree, 297 

of tHe murderous plant a decent screen of living 
green." 

Such was his description of the plant ; and the other 
day, looking it up in a botanical dictionarj^, I find that 
there is reallj' known to naturalists a familj' of carniv- 
orous plants ; but I see that they are most of them very 
small, and prey upon little insects only. Mj^ maternal 
uncle, however, knew nothing of this, for he died before 
the daj's of the discovery of the sun, dew, and pitcher 
plants ; and grounding his knowledge of the man-suck- 
ing tree simplj' on his own terrible experience of it, 
explained its existence by theories of his own. Deny- 
ing the fixit}^ of all the laws of nature except one, that 
the stronger shall endeavor to consume the weaker, and 
holding even this fixit}- to be itself onl}^ a means to a 
greater general changefulness, he argued that — since 
any partial distribution of the faculty of self-defence 
would presume an unworthy partiality in the Creator, 
and since the sensual instincts of beast and vegetable 
are manifesth^ analogous — the world must be as per- 
cipient as sentient throughout. Carrying on his theory 
(for it was something more than hypothesis with him) 
a stage or two further, he arrived at the belief that, 
given the necessit}' of anj^ imminent danger or urgent 
self-interest, every animal or vegetable could event- 
uall}^ revolutionize its nature, the wolf feeding on grass 
or nesting in trees, and the violet arming herself with 
thorns or entrapping insects. 

"How," he would ask, "can we claim for man the 
consequence of perceptions to sensations, and yet deny 
to beasts that hear, see, feel, smell, and taste, a perci- 
pient principle co-existent with their senses? And if 
in the whole range of the animate world there is this 



298 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

gift of self-defence against extirpation, and offence 
against weakness, wli}" is the inanimate world, hold- 
ing as fierce a struggle for existence as the other, to be 
left defenceless and unarmed ? And I deny that it is. 
The Brazilian epiph3'te strangles the tree and sucks out 
its juices. The tree, again, to starve off its vampire 
parasite, withdraws its juices into its roots, and pierc- 
ing the ground in some new place, turns the current of 
its sap into other growths. The epiph3'te then drops 
off the dead boughs on to the fresh green sprouts 
springing from the ground beneath it, — and so the 
fight goes on. Again, look at the Indian peepul tree ; 
in what does the fierce j^earning of its roots towards the 
distant well differ from the sad struggling of the camel 
to the oasis, or of Sennacherib's army to the saving 
Nile? 

" Is the sensitive plant unconscious ! I have walked 
for miles through plains of it, and watched, till the 
watching almost made me afraid lest the plant should 
pluck up courage and turn upon me, the green carpet 
paling into silver gray before m}^ feet, and fainting away 
all round me as I walked. So strangely did I feel 
the influence of this universal aversion, that I would 
have argued with the plant ; but what was the use ? If 
only I stretched out my hands, the mere shadow of the 
limb terrified the vegetable to sickness ; shrubs crum- 
bled up at every commencement of m}^ speech ; and at 
my periods great sturdy-looking bushes, to whose 
robustness I had foolishly appealed, sank in pallid sup- 
plication. Not a leaf would keep me company. A 
breath went forth from me that sickened life. My mere 
presence paral^^zed life, and I was glad at last to come 
out among a less timid vegetation, and to feel the 



The Man- Eating Tree. 299 

resentful spear-grass retaliating on the heedlessness 
that would have crushed it. The vegetable world, 
however, has its revenges. You may keep the guinea- 
pig in a hutch, but how will 3^ou pet the basilisk? The 
little sensitive plant in your garden amuses 3'our chil- 
dren (who will find pleasure also in seeing cockchafers 
spin round on a pin) , but how could you transplant a 
vegetable that seizes the running deer, strikes down the 
passing bird, and once taking hold of him, sucks the 
carcass of man himself, till his matter becomes as vague 
as his mind, and all his animate capabilities cannot 
snatch him from the terrible embrace of — God help 
him ! — an inanimate tree ? 

"Many j-ears ago," said my uncle, "I turned my 
restless steps towards Central Africa, and made the 
journey from where the Senegal empties itself into the 
Atlantic to the Nile, skirting the Great Desert, and 
reaching Nubia on my way to the eastern coast. I had 
with me then three native attendants, — two of them 
brothers, the third, Otona, a young savage from the 
gaboon uplands, a mere lad in his teens ; and one 
da}^, leaving my mule with the two men, who were 
pitching m}^ tent for the night, I went on with my gun, 
the boy accompanying me, towards a fern forest, which 
I saw in the near distance. As I approached it I found 
the forest was cut into two b}^ a wide glade ; and seeing a 
small herd of the common antelope, an excellent beast 
in the pot, browsing their way along the shaded side, I 
crept after them. Though ignorant of their real dan- 
ger the herd was suspicious, and, slowly trotting along 
before me, enticed me for a mile or more along the 
verge of the fern growths. Turning a corner I sud- 
denly became aware of a solitary tree growing in the 



300 Idle Hours under the Punhah. 

middle of the glade — one tree alone. It struck me at 
once that I had never seen a tree exactly like it before ; 
but, being intent upon venison for my supper, I looked 
at it only long enough to satisfy my first surprise at 
seeing a single plant of such rich growth flourishing 
luxuriantly in a spot where onl}" the harsh fern-canes 
seemed to thrive. 

' ' The deer meanwhile were midway between me and 
the tree, and looking at them I saw \X\ey were going to 
cross the glade. Exactly opposite them was an opening 
in the forest, in which I should certainh' have lost my 
supper ; so I fired into the middle of the family as they 
were filing before me. I hit a young fawn, and the rest 
of the herd, wheeling round in their sudden terror, 
made off in the direction of the tree, leaving the fawn 
struggling on the ground. Otona, the bo}', ran forward 
at my order to secure it, but the little creature seeing 
him coming, attempted to follow its comrades, and at a 
fair pace held on their course. The herd had mean- 
while reached the tree, but suddenly, instead of passing 
under it, swerved in their career, and swept round it at 
some yards distance. 

" Was I mad, or did the plant really try to catch the 
deer ? On a sudden I saw, or thought I saw, the tree 
violentl}^ agitated, and while the ferns all round were 
standing motionless in the dead evening air, its boughs 
were swayed b}' some sudden gust towards the herd, 
and swept, in the force of their impulse, almost to the 
ground. I drew vnj hand across my ej^es, closed them 
for a moment, and looked again.. The tree was as 
motionless as ra3'self ! 

" Towards it, and now close to it, the boy was run- 
ning in excited pursuit of the fawn. He stretched out 



Tlu Man-Eating Tree. ., 301 

his hands to catch it. It bounded from his eager grasp. 
Again he reached forward, and again it escaped him. 
There was another rush forward, and the next instant 
bo}^ and deer were beneath the tree. 

" And now there was no mistaking what I saw. 

" The tree was convulsed with motion, leaned for- 
ward, swept its thick foliaged boughs to the ground, and 
enveloped from my sight the pursuer and the pursued ; 
I was within a hundred j^ards, and the cry of Otona 
from the midst of the tree came to me in all the clear- 
ness of its agon}^ There was then one stifled, strang- 
ling scream, and except for the agitation of the leaves 
where they had closed upon the boy, there was not a 
sign of life ! 

" I called out ' Otona ! ' No answer came. I tried 
to call out again, but my utterance was like that of some 
wild beast smitten at once with sudden terror and its 
death wound. I stood there, changed from all sem- 
blance of a human being. Not all the terrors of earth 
together could have made me take my qjq from the 
awful plant, or m}' foot off the ground. I must have stood 
thus for at least an hour, for the shadows had crept out 
from the forest half across the glade before that hideous 
paroxysm of fear left me. My first impulse then was 
to creep stealthil}' away lest the tree should perceive 
me, but my returning reason bade me approach it. The 
boy might have fallen into the lair of some beast of 
prey, or perhaps the terrible life in the tree was that of 
some great serpent among its branches. Preparing to 
defend myself I approached the silent tree, — the harsh 
grass crisping beneath m}^ feet with a strange loudness, 
the cicadas in the forest shrilHng till the air seemed 
throbbing round me with waves of sound. The terrible 
truth was soon before me in all its awful novelty. 



302 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

" The vegetable first discovered 1113^ presence at about 
fifty yards distance. I then became aware of a stealthy 
motion among the thick-lipped leaves, reminding me of 
some wild beast slowly gathering itself up from long 
sleep, a vast coil of snakes in restless motion. Have 
you ever seen bees hanging from a bough — a great 
cluster of bodies, bee cUnging to bee — and by striking 
the bough, or agitating the air, caused that massed life 
*to begin sulkily to disintegrate, each insect asserting its 
individual right to move ? And do you remember how 
without one bee leaving the pensile cluster, the whole 
became gradually instinct with sullen life and horrid 
with a multitudinous motion ? 

"I came within twenty yards of it. The tree was 
quivering through every branch, muttering for blood, 
and, helpless with rooted feet, yearning with every 
branch towards me. It was that terror of the deep sea 
which the men of the northern fiords dread, and which, 
anchored upon some sunken rock, stretches into vain 
space its longing arms, pellucid as the sea itself, and 
as relentless — maimed Polj^pheme groping for his 
victims. 

*' Each separate leaf was agitated and hungry. Like 
hands they fumbled together, their fleshy palms curling 
upon themselves and again unfolding, closing on each 
other and falling apart again, — thick, helpless, finger- 
less hands (rather lips or tongues than hands) dimpled 
closely with little cup-like hollows. I approached nearer 
and nearer, step by step, till I saw that these soft hor- 
rors were all of them in motion, opening and closing 
incessantly. 

' ' I was now within ten j^ards of the farthest reaching 
bough. Every part of it was hysterical with excitement. 



The Man-Eating Tree. 303 

The agitation of its'members was awful — sickening yet 
fascinating. In an ecstasy of eagerness for the food so 
near them, the leaves turned upon each other. Two 
meeting would suck together face to face, with a force 
that compressed their joint thickness to a half, thinning 
the two leaves into one, now grappling in a volute like 
a double shell, writhing like some green worm, and 
at last, faint with the violence of the paroxj'sm, would 
slowly separate, falling apart as leeches gorged drop off 
the limbs. A sticky dew glistened in the dimples, 
welled over, and trickled down the leaf. The sound of 
it dripping from leaf to leaf made it seem as if the tree 
was muttering to itself. The beautiful golden fruit as 
they swung here and there were clutched now by one 
leaf and now by another, held for a moment close en- 
folded from the sight, and then as suddenly released. 
Here a large leaf, vampire-like, had sucked out the juices 
of a smaller one. It hung limp and bloodless, like a 
carcass of which the weasel has tired. 

" I watched the terrible struggle till my starting ej^es, 
strained by intense attention, refused their office, and 
I can hardly say what I saw. But the tree before me 
seemed to have become a live beast. Above me I felt 
conscious was a great limb, and each of its thousand 
clammy hands reached downwards towards me, fumb- 
ling. It strained, shivered, rocked, and heaved. It 
flung itself about in despair. The boughs, tantalized to 
madness with the presence of flesh, were tossed to this 
side and to that, in the agonj^ of a frantic desire. The 
leaves were wrung together as the hands of one driven 
to madness by sudden misery. I felt the vile dew spurt- 
ing from the tense veins fall upon me. My clothes be- 
gan to give out a strange odor. The ground I stood on 
glistened with animal juices. 



304 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

' ' Was I bewildered by terror ? Had my senses 
abandoned me in my need ? I know not — but the tree 
seemed to me to be alive. Leaning over towards me, 
it seemed to be pulling up its roots from the softened 
ground, and to be moving towards me. A mountain- 
ous monster, with m}T.'^ad lips, mumbling together for 
my life, was upon me ! 

" Like one who desperately defends himself from 
imminent death, I made an effort for life, and fired my 
gun at the approaching horror. To my dizzied senses 
the sound seemed far off, but the shock of the recoil 
partially recalled me to myself, and starting back I re- 
loaded. The shot had torn their way into the soft 
body of the great thing. The trunk as it received the 
wound shuddered, and the whole tree was struck with a 
sudden quiver. A fruit fell down — slipping from the 
leaves, now rigid with swollen veins, as from carven 
foliage. Then I saw a large arm slowly droop, and 
without a sound it was severed from the juice-fattened 
bole, and sank down softl}-, noiselessly, through the 
glistening leaves. I fired again, and another vile frag- 
ment was powerless — dead. At each discharge the 
terrible vegetable yielded a life. Piecemeal I attacked 
it, killing here a leaf and there a branch. M}^ fury in- 
creased with the slaughter till, when my ammunition 
was exhausted, the splendid giant was left a wreck — 
as if some hurricane had torn through it. On the 
ground lay heaped together the fragments, struggling, 
rising and falling, gasping. Over them drooped in 
dying languor a few stricken boughs, while upright in 
the midst stood, dripping at qyqvy joint, the glistening 
trunk. 

' ' My continued firing had brought up one of trj men 



The Man-Eating Tree. 305 

on my mule. He dared not, so he told me, come near 
me, thinking me mad. I had now drawn my hunting- 
knife, and with this was fighting — with the leaves. 
Yes — but each leaf was instinct with a horrid life ; and 
more than once I felt my hand entangled for a moment 
and seized as if by sharp lips. ' Ignorant of the pres- 
ence of my companion I made a rush forward over the 
fallen foliage, and with a last paroxysm of frenzy drove 
m}^ knife up to the handle into the soft bole, and, slip- 
ping on the fast congealing sap, fell exhausted and un- 
conscious, among the still panting leaves. 

" M}^ companions carried me back to the camp, and 
after vainly searching for Otona awaited m}^ return to 
consciousness. Two or three hours elapsed before I 
could speak, and several days before I could approach 
the terrible thing. My men would not go near it. It 
was quite dead ; for as we came up a great-billed bird 
with gaudy plumage that had been securely feasting on 
the decaying fruit, flew up from the wreck. We re- 
moved the rotting foliage, and there among the dead 
leaves still limp with juices, and piled round the roots, 
we found the ghastly relics of many former meals, and 
— its last nouiishment — the corpse of little Otona. 
To have removed the leaves would have taken too long, 
so we buried the body as it was with a hundred vampire 
leaves still clinging to it." ^ 

Such, as nearly as I remember it, was my uncle's 
story of the man-eating tree. 



20 



306 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 



II. 

EASTERN SMELLS AND WESTERN NOSES. 

IN his essaj" showing that a certain nation — contrary 
to the generally applauded notion — "do not 
stink," Sir Thomas Browne uses with effect the argu- 
ment that a mixed race cannot have a national smell. 
Among a mongrel people he contends no odor could he 
gentilitious ; 3'et he nowhere denies the possibilit}^, or 
even impugns the probabilit}", of a pure people having 
a popular smell, a scent in which the public should 
share alike, an aroma as much common property as the 
National Anthem, a joint-stock fragrance, a common- 
wealth of odor, — a perfume with which no single in- 
dividual could selfishl}^ withdraw, saving, "This is my 
own, my proper and peculiar flavor, and no man ma}^ cr^'' 
me halves in it," as Alexander or Mahomet might have 
done, who, unless histor}^ lies, were divinely scented. 
Not that individual odors, as distinct from those of the 
species, have been uncommon in an}^ times. Many 
instances may be found, if examples were required, to 
support ' ' a postulate which has ever found unquaUfied 
assent." 

" For well I know, " cries Don Quixote, " the scent 
of that lovely rose ! and tell me, Sancho, when near her, 
thou must have perceived a Sabean odor, an aromatic 
fragrance, a something sweet for which I cannot find a 
name, — a scent, a perfume, as if thou wert in the shop 
of some curious glover." 



Eastern Smells and Western Noses. 307 

"All I can say is," quoth Sancho, " that I perceived 
somewhat of a strong smell." 

It would, however, be pure knavery to argue from the 
particular fragrance of Don Quixote's lad}^ that all the 
dames of La Mancha could appeal to the affections 
through the nose. Equally dishonest would it be to 
disperse Alexander's scent over all Macedon, or with a 
high hand conclude that all Romans were ' ' as unsa- 
vory as Bassa." On the other hand, to argue, from the 
existence of a scentless individual, the innocence of his 
brethren, is to suppose that all violets are dog-violets, 
or that the presence of a snowdrop deodorizes the 
guiltj^ garlic : whereas, in fact, the existence of such an 
individual enhances the universal fragrance ; as Kalid- 
asa saj^s, "one speck of black shows more gloriously 
bright the skin of Siva's bull." If a number of units 
produce an aroma, it will be hard to believe that each is 
individually inodorous, in which argument from proba- 
bilities I have to a certain degree the countenance of 
the Pundits in their maxim of the Stick and the Cake. 
What is more to the point, we have on the globe at 
least one fragrant people, for (leaving Greenlanders out 
of the question) no one denies that Africans are aroma- 
tic. This is no novel suggestion, but an old antiquit}^ ; 
it is a point of high prescription, and a fact univer- 
sally smelt out. If, therefore, one nation can indispu- 
tably claim a general odor, it is possible another may ; 
and much may be found to support any one who will 
say that in this direction "warm India's supple-bodied 
sons" may claim equality of natural adornment with 
" the musky daughj:er of the Nile." If it were not for 
the blubber-feeding Greenlanders, I might contend that 
" it is all the fault of that confounded sun," for heat ex- 



308 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

presses odor elsewhere than in Asia and Africa, and I 
can keep within ' ' Trismegistus his circle " and ' ' need 
not to pitch bej^ond ubiquity " when I cite Pandemo- 
nium as an instance of unit}' of smell in a large popula- 
tion. We read in Bj^ron's '' Vision of Judgment" that 
at the sound of Pj'e's heroics the whole assembly 
sprang off with a melodious twang and a variety of 
scents, some sulphureous, some ambrosial; and that the 
sulphureous individuals all fled one way gibbering to 
their own dominions, that odorous principality of the 
damned whither in old times the handsome minstrel 
went in quest of his wife. That the infernal fraternity 
is uni-odorous we know, on the authority of the immor- 
tal Manchegan Squire, who says: "This devil is as 
plump as a partridge, and has another property very 
different from what you devils are wont to have, for it 
is said they all smell of brimstone," that is, like the 
Vienna matches — ohne phosphor-geruch — that Wendell 
Holmes hates so honestly. 

To return to India, it is very certain that a single 
Hindoo is not always perceptibly fragrant; yet it is 
equally certain tha.t if, when a dozen are together, an 
average be struck, each individual of the party must be 
credited with a considerable amount. In an}' gathering 
of Orientals the Western stranger is instantly aware of 
a circumambient a.roma ; he becomes conscious of a new 
and powerful perfume, — a curious je ne sais quoi scent 
which may possibly, like attar of roses, require only 
endless dilution and an acquired taste to become pleas- 
ant, but which certainly requires dilution for the novice. 
No particular person or member of the public seems to 
be odorous beyond his fellows, but put three together, 
and they might be 300. Perhaps this is produced by 



Eastern Smells and Western Noses. 309 

sympathy, by some magnetic relation between like and 
like, the result of natural affinities. It may be that 
each Hindoo is flint to the other's steel, and that more 
than one is requisite for the combustion of the aromatic 
particles ; and that, as evening draws the perfume from 
flowers, and excitement the "bouquet" from a musk- 
rat, contiguity and congregation are required for the 
proper expression of the fragrance of Orientals. Cases 
of individuals innocent of all savor carr}'- therefore no 
weight, unless to those who believe that all asses can 
speak because Balaam's quadruped was casually gifted 
with articulate utterance, or that fish as a rule possess 
stentorian lungs because Mr. Briggs once caught a pike 
that barked. 

A notable point about this Eastern savor is that, 
though it approaches many others, it exactly resembles 
none. Like EHa's burnt pig, it doesn't smell of burnt 
cottage, nor yet of any known herb, weed, or flower. 
Though unique, its entity is intertwisted with a host of 
phantom entities, as a face seen in a passing train, in- 
stantly recognized but never brought home to any one 
person from its partial resemblance to a hundred ; and 
they say that no number of quahfied truths can ever 
make up an absolute verity. By smelling a musk-rat 
through a bunch of garlic an idea of it may be arrived 
at, but hardly more ; for the conflicting odors hamper 
the judgment by distracting the nostrils, keeping it 
hovering in acute uncertainty between the components 
without allowing it to settle on the aggregate — "so 
blended and running into each other, that both together 
make but one ambrosial result or common substance." 
This seems to be affected not by an actual confusion of 
matters but by parallel existence ; rather by the nice 



310 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

exactitude of balance than mutual absorption ; not so 
much by a mingled unit}^ as from our impotence to 
unravel the main threads, to single out any one streak 
of color. It is like a nobody's child, a Ginx's bab}', 
with a whole parish for parents ; or one of those pud- 
dings which at every mouthful might be sworn to 
change its taste, and which when finished leaves one 
indelible but impalpable fragrance on the memor}^ of the 
palate, that may be called up by Q\Qvy passing odor, 
but is never in its composite singularity again encoun- 
tered. It is a lost chord. 

In the West no such community of fragrance obtains, 
and the great science of perfume, though exquisitely 
perfected in certain details, does not command as in the 
East the attention of the masses. With us it is the 
exception to use scent, but with them the singular 
person is the scentless one. The nose nevertheless 
plan's an important part even in Europe, and it is well, 
therefore, that this feature has at last found one cour- 
ageous apostle. 

Dr. Jager, a professor of Stuttgart, has, after most 
patient experiments with his own nose, proved it to be 
the seat of his soul. Simply with the nose on his face 
the learned professor is enabled, 63-68 shut and ears 
stopped, to discriminate the character of an}^ stranger 
he may meet, or even that he has passed in the street. 
He can, then, by merely putting his nose to the key- 
hole, tell what the people on the other side of the door 
are doing ; and, more than this, what they have just 
been doing, can assure himself whether they are young 
or old, married or single, and whether they are happy 
or the reverse. Proceeding upon the knowledge thus 
acquired by a process which we may call successful 



Eastern Smells and Western Noses. 311 

diagnosis, the professor argues, in a lecture which he 
has given to the world on this fascinating subject, tliat 
if different scents express different traits of character, 
each trait in turn can be separately affected by a par- 
ticular scent , and his experiments, he gravel}^ assures 
us, prove him here as right as before. For not only 
can Dr. Jager smell, for instance, bad temper or a 
tendenc}^ to procrastination in any individual, but by 
emitting the counteracting antidote odor, he can smooth 
the frown into a smile, and electrify the sluggard into 
despatch. Yet Dr. Jager does not claim to possess 
within himself, his own actual bodj^, more perfumes 
than any of his neighbors. He does not arrogate to 
himself any special odors, as did Mahomet and Alexan- 
der the Great, or ask to divide honors with the civet-cat 
or musk-deer. There is no insolent assumption of this 
kind about the professor, no unnatural straining after the 
possession of extraordinary attributes. He merely claims 
to have discovered by chemical research certain prepara- 
tions, which, when volatilized, produce certain results 
upon the nostrils. There is no o'er-vaulting ambition 
in this. The merest tyro can compass as much with a 
very few ingredients ; and, as a matter of fact, any boy 
of average, on. even the meanest, capacity can, by a 
courageous combination of the contents of his chemical 
chest, produce such effluvia as shall at once, and vio- 
lentl}^ affect the nostrils of the whole household, not 
excluding the girl in the scullery or the cat on the 
nursery hearthrug. But the boy's results are miscel- 
laneous and fortuitous. He blunders upon a smell of 
extraordinary volume and force by, it ma}^ be, the 
merest accident, and quite unintentional!}^, therefore, 
lets loose upon himself the collective wrath of his family 



312 Idle Hours under the Punhah. 

circle. Dr. Jager, however, bas brought the whole 
gamut of smells under his own control ; and so, by let- 
ting out from his pocket any one he chooses, he can at 
once dissolve an assembly in tears or make every face 
in it ripple with smiles. The great secret of com- 
position once attained, care in uncorking is all that 
is demanded ; and the professor, with his pocket full of 
little bottles, can move about unsuspected among his 
kind, and, by his judicious emission of various smells 
as he goes along, can tranquilize a frantic mob, or set 
the passing funeral giggling, or a Punch-and-Judy audi- 
ence sobbing. 

Hitherto the nose has been held, as compared with 
the other organs of sense, in very slight account indeed. 
It has always been looked upon as the shabby feature 
of the face, and, in public society, has been spoken of 
■with an apolOg}^ for mentioning it. Man}^ attempts have 
been made to render it respectable, but the best-inten- 
tioned efforts of philosophers have been thwarted by the 
extremes to which their theories have been pushed by 
the longer-nosed individuals of the public. The nose 
may be really an index of character, but the amount of 
nose does not necessarily impl}', as some people con- 
tend, a corresponding pre-eminence of genius or virtue. 
Many great and good men have had quite indifferent 
noses, while the length of the proboscis of more than 
one hero of the Chamber of Horrors is remarkable. The 
feeling against this feature has, therefore, been irritated 
rather than soothed by the well-meant efforts of theorists. 
When the urchin, innocent of art, wishes, with his simple 
chalk, to caricature the householder upon his gate-post 
or garden-door, he finds in the nose the most suitable 
object for his unskilled derision. Grown up, the same 



Eastern SmxUs and Western JVoses. 313 

urchin, exasperated with his neighbor, seizes him by the 
nose. This ill-feeling against the feature admits of little 
explanation, for it seems altogether unreasonable and 
deplorable. It is true that the nose takes up a com- 
manding position on the face, and does not altogether 
fulfil the expectations naturallj^ formed of so prominent 
a member. Vagrant specks of soot settle upon it and 
make it ridiculous. An east wind covers the nose with 
absurdity. It is a fierce light that beats upon a throne, 
and the nose, before assuming a central place, should 
perhaps, remarking the fact, have been better prepared 
to maintain its own dignity. But beyond this, impartial 
criticism cannot blame the feature. On the other hand, 
much can be said in its favor, and if Dr. Jager is right, 
a great future lies before the nose. Lest it should be 
thought I exaggerate the importance of Dr. Jager's dis- 
coveries, I give the learned professor's own words. 
"Puzzled as to the meaning of the word soul^'' says 
he, "I set m3'self to inquire, and m}^ researches have 
assured me that the seat of the immortal part of man is 
in his nose. All the mind aff'ections are relative to the 
nasal sensations. I have found this out by observing 
the habits of animals in the menagerie ; and, finding how 
exquisite was their sense of smell, I conceived my great 
idea, and experiment has proved me right. So perfect 
can the perceptions b}^ the nose become that I can dis- 
cover even the mental conditions of those around me 
by smelling them ; and more than this, I can, b}^ going 
into a room, tell at once by sniffing whether those who 
were last in it were sad or mirthful. Aroma is in fact, 
the essence of the soul, and every flavor emitted b}^ the 
body represents a corresponding emotion of the soul. 
Happiness finds expression in a mh^thful perfume, 



314 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

sorrow in a doleful one. Does not a liungrj^ man on 
smelling a joint of meat at once rejoice ? I m3^self have 
been so overcome b}' the scent of a favorite fruit that, 
under an uncontrollable impulse, I have fallen upon 
and devoured the whole plateful ! so powerful is the 
sense of smell." To present the different perfumes ac- 
curately and easil}^ to the e3'e, the professor, when first 
delivering his lecture, drew upon a blackboard a num- 
ber of diagrams showing the various curves taken by 
the scent atoms when striking upon the soul-nerves, and 
explained brieflj^ certain instruments he had constructed 
for registering the wave motion of smells, and the rela- 
tive force with which they impinged upon the nose of 
his soul or the soul of his nose. The audience mean- 
while had become restless and agitated, and the pro- 
fessor therefore hurried on to the second section of his 
discoveries — those for counteracting the passions de- 
tected by the nose. " I have here," he said, " a smell- 
murdering essence, which I have discovered and christ- 
ened Ozogene, and with which I can soothe the angry 
man to mildness or infuriate a Quaker." But the audi- 
ence, such is the bigoted antipath}^ to the exaltation of 
the nose, would not stand this on any account, and the 
professor, in obedience to the clamor, had to resume his 
seat. 

Dr. Jiiger did not, therefore, secure a patient hearing ; 
but he should remember how at all times the first apos- 
tles of truth have been received, and live content to 
know that posterity will gravel}' honor his memory-, 
though contemporar}' man makes fun of Ms discoveries. 
Indeed, posteritj^ will have good cause to honor the 
great man who shall thus have banished from among 
them strife and anger. The Riot Act will never have 



Eastern Smells and Western Noses. 315 

to be read to an excited populace, since a squirt of per- 
fume will suffice to allay their fury. The comic lecturer 
or charity-sermon preacher may assure themselves of 
the sympathy of his audiences quite apart from the 
matter of their discourse. Science will have new fields 
opened to it, and humanity take a new lease of its 
pleasures. The nose, hitherto held of little more ac- 
count than the chin, will supersede all the other fea- 
tures, and, like Cinderella, rise from the kitchen ashes 
to palace dignities, developing under the Darwinian 
theory into proboscidian dimensions of extraordinary 
acuteness. The policeman will need no evidence but 
that of his nose to detect the thief, actual or potential, 
and the judge, unhampered by jmy, counsel or wit- 
nesses, will summaril}^ dispense a nasal justice. Di- 
plomacy will be purged of its obscurities, and statesmen 
live in a perpetual palace of truth. Conscious of each 
other's detective organs, men will speak of their fellows 
honestly, and hj^pocris}' will cease from society. How 
will war or crime be able to thrive when the first symp- 
tom of ill-temper in a sovereign or of ambition in a 
minister can be quenched at the will of any individual 
ratepayer? And thus a universal peace will settle upon 
a sniffing world. 



316 Idle Hours under the Punhah. 



III. 

GAMINS. 

ANTHEOPOLOGY, no doubt, is a great science, 
but still it is merely an infant, — a monster bab}' , 
I confess, but scarcel}^ past the age at which Charles 
Lamb liked sucking-pigs and chimney-sweeps. Toddles 
and Poddies, as readers of Dickens will remember, used 
to go on buccaneering ex^jeditions, but they were only 
across the kitchen-floor, and often ended in the fireplace. 
Anthropology, in the same way, makes onty short ex- 
cursions, and these even are not always marked by judg- 
ment in direction. At an}" rate, there can be no doubt 
that anthropology has not as yet paid any consideration 
to the great co-ordinate science of " lollipopology " of 
which one sub-section concerns itself with the phenomena 
of gamins. 

This subject has perhaps been touched upon in ephem- 
eral literature, but it was a mere flirtation, a flippant 
butterfl}' kind of settling. The intentions were not mat- 
rimonial ; there was no talk of taking the house on a 
lease. And jQt the subject of gamin distribution is 
worthy investigation. Why are there no gamins in In- 
dia, with their street affronts and trivial triumphs ? 
Pariah dogs are scarcety an equivalent for these un- 
kempt morsels of barbarism, these little Ishmaels of 
our cities. What is the reason, then, for their absence? 
Can it be too hot to turn three wheels a penny ? Surely 



Gamins. 317 



not ; for dust is a bad conductor of heat, and what gamin 
is there — pure-minded, a gamin nomine dignus — that 
would not rather turn thirty somersaults in a dust-bin 
than three on a pavement ? Why, my ' ' compound " ^ 
alone would tempt to an eternit}^ of tumbling. And 3^et 
no Hindoo of mj^ acquaintance has even offered to stand 
on his head ! Can it be that there is no ready means of 
causing annoj-ance ? What ! Is there not that same 
dust? Would not any gamin, unless lost to all sense 
of emulation and self-respect, rejoice in kicking up dust 
if he saw the remotest glimpse of even the chance of 
molesting anybody? Again, why do not little Hindoos 
throw stones about ? Because there is nothing to throw 
at? Hah! Put one vulture down in Islington, and 
mark the instant result. Nothing to throw at? Melier- 
cule ! Any member of a large family will remember the 
tumultuous uprising and stair-shaking exit of the junior 
olive-twigs if even a wagtail came into the garden. A 
cat on the lawn was convulsions. Imagine, then, those 
same impetuous juniors surrounded b}^ blue-jays, bee- 
eaters, and gray squirrels ! And yet the young Hindoo 
sees an easy mark for an}^ of the stones lying at his feet, 
and passes on. Perhaps it is something in the shape of 
the stones ? The argument is plausible ; for Indian 
stones, it is true, are of hideous shapes, angular and 
unprovocative. The fingers do not itch to throw them. 
But European gamins will throw brick in scraggy and 
uncompromising sections, reharhatif and volcanic in ap- 
pearance, — at, when other targets fail, a curbstone. A 
London gamin would heave his grandmother, if he 

1 A word of vexed derivation, but meaning in India (and Ba- 
tavia, I believe) the precincts of a dwelling-house, — premises, in 
fact. — P. K. 



318 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

could, at a mungoose. Are Hindoos forbidden to tiirow 
stones? Perhaps thej^ may be, but imagine forbidding 
a gamin to throw stones, or forbidding a gamin to do 
anything ! When England sells Gibraltar it will be time 
to think of that ; or when, as Wendell Holmes says, 
strawberries grow bigger downward through the basket. 
It is evident, then, that none of these are the right rea- 
sons, so it only remains to conclude that Hindoos were 
not designed in the beginning for gamins. Bo3's, they 
say, are the natural enemies of creation, but Young 
India contradicts this flat. " Boys will be boys "has 
stood most of us in good stead when brought red-handed 
before the tribune ; yet Young India needs no excusings 
for mischief. He never does any. He has all the vir- 
tues of his elders, and none of their vices, for he posi- 
tively prefers to behave properly. 

Perhaps as a last resource the absence of gamins in 
India might be accepted as a key to the theory of 
climates, for we know that Nature never wastes. Na- 
ture is pre-eminently economical. What, then, would 
have been the use of giving Bengal ice and snow, since 
there are no gamins to throw it about, or to make slides 
on pavements ? 

In England the small boy begins to throw stones as 
soon as he can crawl to one, and continues to do so 
until he takes to gloves, or is taken up by the police ; 
and there are tolerable reasons why he should thus 
indulge himself. Take, for instance, the case of a pass- 
ing train. The boys see the train coming and a lively 
interest is at once aroused in its approach ; the best 
places on the bridge are scrambled for, and the smaller 
children, who cannot climb up for themselves, are hoisted 
on to the parapet and balanced across it on their stom- 



Gamins. 319 



achs to see the train pass. As it comes puffing and 
steaming up, the interest rises into excitement, and 
then, as the engine pkmges under the bridge, boils over 
in enthusiasm. How are they to express this emotion 
in the few seconds at their disposal? Tliey must be 
very quick, for the carriages are slipping rapidlj' past 
one after the other. It is of no use shouting, for the 
train makes more noise than they, and the}^, unfor- 
tunately, have no handkerchiefs to wave. But the crisis 
is acute, and something has to be done, and that 
promptlj^ There is no time to waste in reflection, or 
the train will be gone, and the sudden solitude that will 
follow will be embittered to them by the consciousness 
of golden opportunities lost for ever. They wave their 
arms like w^ild semaphores, scream inarticulate^, and 
dance up and down, but all this is manifestly inade- 
quate. It does not rise to the occasion, and they feel 
that it does not. The moment of tumult, with the 
bridge shaking under them, the dense white steam- 
clouds rushing up at them, and the roar of the train in 
their ears, demands a higher expression of their hom- 
age, a more glorious tribute from their energ3^ Look- 
ing round in despair, the}^ see some stones. To grab 
them up in handfuls is the work of an instant, and in 
the next the missiles are on their way. After all, the 
moment had been almost lost, for the guard's van was 
just emerging from under the bridge, as the pebbles 
came hurtling along after the speeding train ; but the 
youngsters rejoice, and go home gladdened that they 
did not throw in vain, for the guard, hearing the patter- 
ing upon the roof, looked out to see what was the mat- 
ter and shook his fist at them, and the boys feel that 
they have done their best to . celebrate the event, that 



320 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

their sacrifice has been accepted, and that the}^ have 
not lived and loved in vain. For it is, undoubtedly, a 
sacrifice that thej^ ofl'er, — a sacrifice to emotions highly 
wrought, to an ecstasy of enthusiasm suddenly over- 
whelming them and as suddenly departing, to the ma- 
jesty of the train and its tumultuous passage. 

Boys do not, it will be noticed, throw stones at pass- 
ing wheelbarrows or at perambulators, or even at cabs. 
Neither the one nor the other excites sufficiently. 
They belong more to their own sphere and their own 
level in life, are viewed subjectively, and seem too com- 
monplace for extraordinary attentions. The train and 
the steamboat, however, are abstract ideas, absorbing 
the human beings the}^ carry into their own gigantic 
entit}^, so far removed from the boj's' own lives that 
they do not fall within the pale of ordinary ethics, and 
have to be viewed from a higher objective platform. 
Besides, the driver and guards of the train, being in a 
hurr}^, have no time to get down and catch the pelters, 
and therefore it is safe to pelt — so the boj^s think. 

Whether magistrates have ever studied, or should 
stud}^, the matter from an}^ other than a police-court 
point of view I should hesitate to affirm. But in the 
ordinary cases where lads fling pebbles at a steamboat 
or train, their parents are fined, with the option of the 
culprits going to prison, and as the parents no doubt 
always give the urchins their full money's worth in retri- 
bution, justice is probably dealt out all round fairly 
enough. The boys, it generall}^ appears, hit "an el- 
derly passenger" with one of the stones which they 
throw ; and there matters culminate, as the original act 
of stone-throwing, had the missiles struck no one, might 
have passed by as a surviving remnant of some old 
pagan ceremony. 



Gamins. 321 



Indeed from the very first, the youngsters have had 
bad examples before them ; and if in such matters we 
are to go back to the original offenders, we must confess 
that Deucalion and his wife have much to answer for. 
Their descendants have been throwing stones ever 
since ; and, whether in fun or in earnest, in the execu- 
tion of criminal sentences or the performance of religious 
rites, men have never given over pelting each other. 
Whatever part of the world we go into, we find it is the 
same ; for in the wilds of America the Red Indian shies 
flints at his spirit stones ; all over Europe the devil is 
exorcised with stones ; and in Asia, whether it is the 
Arab pelting the Evil One from the sacred precincts of 
the Holy City, or the Hindoo dropping pebbles into the 
vallej^s of enchantment, a similar tendency in race pre- 
vails. 

As an instance of the innocent view taken of the 
practice by a distinguished Englishman, De Quincey, 
I would quote the incident of his meeting the king in 
Windsor Park. De Quincey was then a lad, and, walk- 
ing with a young friend, was, he tells us, " theorizing 
and practically commenting on the art of chucking 
stones. Boj^s," he continues, " have a peculiar con- 
tempt for female attempts in that way. For, besides 
that girls fling wide of the mark, with a certainty that 
might have won the applause of Galerius,^ there, is a 
peculiar sling and rotary motion of the arm in launch- 

1 " Sir/' said that emperor to a soldier who had missed the 
target in succession I know not how many times (suppose we 
say fifteen), ''allow me to offer my congratulations on the truly 
admirable skill you have shown in keeping clear of the mark. 
Not to have hit once in so many trials, argues the most splen- 
did talents for missing." 

21 



322 Idle Hours under the Punhah. 

ing a stone, which no girl ever can attain. From an- 
cient practice" (note this) " I was somewhat of a pro- 
ficient in this art, and was discussing the philosophy of 
female failures, illustrating my doctrine with pebbles, 
as the case happened to demand, when — " he met the 
king^ and the narrative diverges from the subject. 

Nor is stone-throwing without some dignity in its 
traditions, for it has happened probably to many of us 
ourselves, and it has certainly been a custom from time 
immemorial, to take augury more or less momentous 
from this act, and make oracles of our pebbles. Among 
the many cases of this species of divination on record, 
none is more notable than that of Rousseau's, where he 
put the tremendous issues of his future state to the test 
of stone-throwing. "One day," sa3^s he, "I was pon- 
dering over the condition of my soul and the chances of 
future salvation or the reverse, and all the while me- 
chanically, as it were, throwing stones at the trunks 
of the trees I passed, and with all m}^ customar}^ dex- 
terit}^, — or in other words never hitting one of them. 
All of a sudden the idea flashed into m}^ mind that I 
would take an augury, and thus, if possible, relieve my 
mental anxiety. I said to myself, I will throw this 
stone at that tree opposite. If I hit it, I am to be 
saved ; if I miss it, I am to be damned eternally ! " 
And he threw the stone, and hit it plumb in the mid- 
dle, — " ce qui veritablement n'^tait pas difficile; car 
j'avais eu soin de choisir un arbre fort gros et fort 
pres." 

It is very possible, moreover, that the English boy 
throws stones from hereditary instinct ; that he bom- 
bards the. passing locomotives even as in primeval for- 
ests the ancestral ape ' ' shelled " with the cocoanuts of 



Gamins. 323 



his native forests the passing herds of bison. It would 
therefore be rash, without research into the lore of 
stone-throwing, and a better knowledge of the Stone 
Age, to say that the urchin who takes a " cockshy" at 
a steamboat does so purely from criminal instinct ; for 
it is repeatedly in evidence that he takes no aim with 
his missile at all, but simply launches it into space, and, 
generous and trustful as childhood always is, casts his 
pebbles upon the waters in hopes of pleasant though 
fortuitous results. 

Again, as I have already said, there is often no mali- 
cious motive. To pelt the loquacious frog is, in my 
opinion, a cruel act, but the criminalit}^ lessens, at least 
to my thinking, if the same stone be thrown at a hippo- 
potamus. Similarly, we might recognize a difference 
between flinging half a brick at an individual stranger 
and throwing it at a mass-meeting or at a nation, or at 
All the Russias ; while, if a boy threw stones at the 
Channel Squadron, he would be simplj^ absurd, and his 
criminality would cease altogether. Where, then, should 
the line be drawn ? The boy would rather pelt an iron- 
clad than a penn}'' steamboat, for it is a larger and 
nobler object to aim at ; but, though he could do 
" H.M.S. Devastation" no harm, the police could 
hardly be expected to overlook his conduct. Stone- 
throwing has therefore come to be considered wrong in 
itself; just as the other day a wretched old bear, found 
dancing for hire in the streets, was astonished to learn 
from the police magistrate that bears are not permitted 
to dance in England. What his hind legs were given 
him for the quadruped will now be puzzled to guess, 
and in the same way the boy, finding he must not throw 
them, will wonder what stones were made for. 



324 Idle Hours under the Punhah. 

A very small cause, indeed, may have immense effects ; 
and this holds good with national character as well as 
with natural phenomena. A little stone set rolling from 
the top of the Andes might spread ruin far and wide 
through the vallej's at their feet, and the accident of 
Esau being a good marksman has left the Arabs wan- 
derers and desert folk to the present day. The English 
character has itself been formed by an aggregation of 
small causes working together, and it will perhaps be 
found that one of the most important of them was the 
abundance of stones that lie about the surface of the 
ground in England. In India the traveller may go a 
thousand miles in a straight line, and except where he 
crosses rivers, will not find anything on the ground 
which he can pick up and throw. The Bengali, there- 
fore, cannot throw, and never could, for he has never 
had an3'thing to practise with ; and what is his char- 
acter? Is he not notoriousl}^ gentle and soft-man- 
nered? His dogs are still wild beasts, and his wild 
birds are tame. What can explain this better than the 
absence of stones ? We in England have always had 
plenty of stones, and where the fists could not settle 
quarrels our rude ancestors had only to stoop to the 
ground for arms ; and it is a mere platitude to say that 
the constant provision of arms makes a people ready to 
pick a quarrel and encourages independence in bearing. 
From the same cause our dogs obej- our voices, for the 
next argument they know will be a stone ; while, as for 
our wild birds, let the schoolboys tell us whether they 
understand the use of pebbles or not. In Greece the 
argument of the chermadion is still a favorite, for the 
savage dogs are still there that will recognize no other, 
unmindful of that disastrous episode in the histor}^ of 
Mj'cense, which all arose from Hercules's 3^oung cousin 



Gamins. 325 



throwing a paving stone at a baj^ing hound. These 
same bo^'s of ours, therefore, have this argument also in 
their favor, that the}' are obeying an hereditary instinct 
and developing the original plan of nature, when they 
throw stones. 

I doubt if the police will attend to this. It is better, 
perhaps, they should not, or at any rate, that they 
should whip the bo^^s first and discuss the instinct after- 
wards. A reformatory, except at Stone}^ Stratford, 
for such offenders would not, so to speak, be out of 
place, and a penitentiary at Stonehenge would be de- 
lightfully apposite, for the urchins could not throw it 
about, however much they might pine to do so. If exile 
be not thought too harsh for such delinquents, punish- 
ment might be pleasantly blended with consideration, if 
our stone-throwing youth were banished to Arabia 
Petrsea. We would not go so far as to recommend 
stoning the urchins, for the ceremony which goes by 
that name was not the promiscuous casting of stones at 
a criminal, as is generally supposed. The guilty person, 
so the Talmud enacts, was taken to the top of an emi- 
nence of fifteen feet, and violent^ pushed over the 
edge. The fall generally broke his back, but if the exe- 
cutioners, on looking over, found their victim was not 
dead, they fetched one large stone and dropped it down 
from the same eminence upon the body. Such a punish- 
ment as this would not be suitable for the modern 
offence of pelting trains and steamboats. Nevertheless 
severity is called for ; as, in spite of the hereditar}^ and 
legendary precedent which the gamin of the period has 
for his pastimes, he cannot, even as the representative 
of the primeval ape, be permitted to indulge his en- 
thusiasm at the sight of the triumphs of science in a 
manner that endangers the elderly passenger. 



326 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 



lY. 

OF TAILORS. 

THAT superstition is hateful, merely because it is 
superstition, is an inhuman doctrine. Yorick 
was superstitious, and so was Martin Luther. That 
a man should hesitate to shoot a raven lest he kill 
King Arthur unawares, can scarcely be held a criminal 
cunctation. Was ever man more superstitious than the 
silly knight of La Mancha, the sweet gentleman who 
loved too well ; but did ever the man soil earth who 
hated Don Quixote? Cervantes, when he limned him, 
might laugh awa}^ the chivahy of Spain ; but he did not, 
nor did he wish to, draw a knave. And yet in nothing 
do we find more to hate, with the honest hatred of an 
Esau, than in this same superstition. Heaven-born, it 
has bred with monster fiends. True superstition is rev- 
erent, and from it, like orchids from an old tree-trunk, 
spring blossoms of rare beaut3\ But as the same tree 
feeds noisome fungi, the vampire epiphyte and slab 
lichens, so from the grand old trunk of superstition has 
sprung out a growth of unwholesome fictions. What 
miscreant first said that a tailor was the ninth part, and 
no more, of a man? By what vile arithmetic did the 
author of the old play arrive at his equation of tailors to 
men when he makes his hero, on meeting eighteen of 
them, call out, " Come on, hang it, I'll fight you both ! " 
Why a ninth, and why a tailor? 



Of Tailors, 327 



The tailor is the victim of misconstruction. Remem- 
ber George Eliot's story of a man so snuffy that the cat 
happening to pass near him was seized with such a vio- 
lent sternutation as to be cruelly misunderstood ! Let 
Baboo IshureeDass say, "Tailors, they are very dis- 
honest " ; he is speaking of natives. Let Burton say, 
" The tailor is a thief" ; he was fanciful. And let Ur- 
quiza of Paita be detested; he was only a half-bred 
Peruvian. Remember the regiment of London tailors ; 
De Quincy's brave journej^man tailor ; M. Achille Jules 
Cesar Le Grand, who was so courteous to Marguerite 
in the ' ' Morals of May Fair " ; the tailor of Yarrow who 
beat Mr. Tickler at backgammon; the famous tailor 
who killed seven at one blow and lived to divide a king- 
dom, and to call a queen his stepmother. Read 
"Mouat's Quinquennial Report of the Lower Prov- 
inces," and learn that the number of tailors in prison 
was less by one half than that of the priests. They 
were, moreover, the only class that had the decency to 
be incarcerated in round numbers, thereby notably facili- 
tating the taking of averages and the deduction of 
most valuable observations. 

Tailors, the ninth part of a man ! Then are all 
^thiops harmless? Can no Cretan speak a true word, 
or a Boeotian a wise one? Are all Itahans blasphem- 
ing, and is Egypt merry Egypt? Nature, and she is no 
fool, has thought good to reproduce the tailor type in 
bird and insect : then why does man contemn the tailor? 
Because he sits cross-legged? Then is there not a 
whole man in Persia. Why should our children be 
taught in the nursery rhyme, how " nine-and-twenty 
tailors went out to kill a snail, but not a single one of 
them dared to touch his tail" ? Or why should the 



328 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

world exult over the tailor, whom the elephant, as we 
learn from Mrs. Gurton's " Book of Anecdotes," squirted 
with ditch-water? We know the elephant to have been 
the aggressor ; but just as we rejoice with Punch over 
the murder of his wife, and the affront he offers to the 
devil, so we applaud the ill-mannered pachj-derm. " The 
elephant," we read in childhood, " put his trunk into a 
tailor's shop," thrust his nose, some four feet of it, into 
a tailor's house, his castle, writing himself down a gross 
fellow and an impertinent. For the tailor to have said, 
"Take 3'our nose out of my shop" would have been 
tame ; and on a mammal ill-conditioned enough to go 
where he was not bidden, such temperance would have 
been thrown awa}-. When the Goth pulled the beard of 
the Senator, the Eoman struck him down. Did Jtipiter 
argue with Ixion, or Mark bandy words with the lover 
of Isolt? The tailor did not waste his breath, but we 
read " pricked the elephant's nose with a needle." 
Here the story should end. Jove's eagles have met at 
Delos. But no. "The elephant," we are told, "re- 
tired to a puddle and filled his trunk with water, and 
returning to the shop, squirted it over the 'tailor." It 
was sagacious, doubtless, to squirt water at the tailor, 
and to squirt it straight ; but such sagacity is no virtue, 
or the Artful Dodger must be held to be virtuous. The 
triumph of the elephant was one of Punch's triumphs ; 
Punch, who beats his wife past recover}^, hangs an 
intimate friend after stealing his dog, and trifles with 
the devil, — Punch the incorrigible homunculus who, 
fresh from murder (his infant being thrown out of win- 
dow) , and with the smell of the brinistone of Diavolus 
still clinging to his frilled coat, complacently drums his 
heels upon the stage and assures his friends in front 



Of Tailors, 329 



that, he has put his enemies to flight. Root a-too-it ! 
Root-a-too-it / It is a great villain ; j^et the audience 
roar their fat applause. So with the elephant. Yet 
Mrs. Gurton has handed him down to future childhood 
as a marvel of sagacity, to be compared onty with that 
pig who tells the time of day on plajdng-cards ; the cat 
in Wellingtons who made his master Marquis of Cara- 
bas, and rose himself to high honors ; and that ingeni- 
ous but somewhat severe oldrlady who labored under the 
double disadvantage of small lodgings and a large 
familj^ Of all these Mrs. Gurton, in her able work, 
preserves the worthy memories ; but that episode of the 
high-handed elephant and the seemly tailor should have 
been forgotten — irrecoverably lost like the hundred and 
odd volumes of Livy, or Tabitha Bramble's reticule in 
the River Avon. But the blame of perpetuation rests 
not with Mrs. Gurton, but with her posterity. They 
admired the work and reprinted -it, not like Anthon's 
classics, expurgated, but in its noisome entiretj^ The 
volume before me is now a score 3'ears old — one year 
younger than was Ulj^sses's dog, and two j^ears older 
than Chatterton ; so perhaps it may not be reproduced 
in our generation, and the mischievous fable may die 
out before the growth of better reading, as the scent of 
a musk-rat killed over-night fades awa}^ before the fumes 
of breakfast. Then let us hope, the tailor — the only 
story which reflects contempt on him being abolished — 
will assume his proper position between the angels and 
the anthropomorphous apes. 



330 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 



THE HAEA-KIRI. 

THE Hara-kiri is a universal custom, for there is 
no passion in the mind of man so weak but it 
masters the fear of death. So said Lord Bacon ; and 
he ilhistrates his text, as also does Barton, in his 
"Anatom}'," with many notable examples of revenge 
triumphing over death, love slighting it, honor aspiring 
to it, grief fl3ing to it, fear ignoring it, and even pitj^, 
the tenderest of affections, provoking to it. When Otho 
the Emperor committed suicide, man}^ out of sheer 
compassion that such a , sovereign should have re- 
nounced life, killed themselves. Indeed it requires no 
strong passion to take the terrors out of death, for we 
know how frequentl}' suicides have left behind them, as 
the onl}' reason for their act, that the}^ were "tired of 
life," wear}^ perhaps, of an existence monotonous with 
poverty or sickness, or even simply borne down by the 
mere tedious repetition of uneventful da3^s. In spite, 
however, of the .multitude of examples which past his- 
tory and the records of our own everj-da}^ life afford, 
that death wears for man}" of all classes and both sexes 
a by no means fearful aspect, the human mind recoils 
from the prospect of digging, as it were, one's own 
grave, and shudders at the thought of being the exe- 
cutioner of one's own bodj'. 

Apologists have, however, been found for suicide, not 



Tlie Hara-Kiri. 331 



only in antiquity, but in modem days ; some, like Dr. 
Donne, claiming for the act the same degrees of culpa- 
bility that the law attaches to homicide, others founding 
their pleas on the ground that Holy Writ nowhere con- 
demns the crime, and one profanely arguing that his life 
is a man's own to do with as he will. Goethe may be 
called an apologist for suicide, and so may all those his- 
torians or novelists who make t^ieir heroes " die nobly" 
by their own hands ; and De Quincey himself seems to 
have been at one time inclined to excuse under certain 
circumstances the act of " spontaneous martyrdom." 

Pity at first carries away the feelings of the sympa- 
thetic, but there are few healthy minds to which, on the 
second thought, does not come the reflection that suicide 
is, after all, an insult to human nature, and, for all its 
pathos, cowardly. There are, indeed, circumstances, 
such, for instance, as hideous, incurable disease, that 
tend to soften the public verdict upon the unhappy 
wretch, who, in taking his own hfe, had otherwise com- 
mitted a crime against humanity, and played a traitor's 
part to all that is most noble in man. But these, as 
actually resulting in suicide, are very exceptional and 
infrequent. In most cases life is thrown away impa- 
tiently and peevishly, a sudden impulse of remo se or 
grief nerving the victim to forget how grand life really 
is, with its earnest aims anu hearty work, and how 
bright it is with its e very-day home affections and its 
cheerful hopes of better things and better times. Our 
courts of law generalize such impulses under the term 
" temporary insanity," and the world accepts the term 
as a satisfactory one, for it is not human to believe that, 
a sane person would under any circumstances throw up 
life. Eaces, our own notably, conspicuous wherever 



332 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

found in the earth for their active, heartj^, healthful 
pursuit of work or pleasure, refuse to believe that any 
but the mad, whether permanently or for the time only, 
would wilfully cut short their life's interests, and ex- 
change sunlight and manly labor, all the ups and downs 
that make men brave and hopeful, for the gloomy igno- 
miu}^ of a premature grave. " Above all," says Lord 
Bacon, "believe it, the sweetest canticle is 'Nunc 
Dimittis, when a man hath obtained worth}^ ends and 
expectations ; " but death in the prime of life, " Finis" 
written before half the pages of the book had been 
turned, must always present itself to the courageous, 
cheerful mind as the most terrible of catastrojAes. 

In its most terrible form, the Hara-kiri is of course a 
Japanese evil ; but suicide, alas ! is not peculiar to any 
one countr}" or people. In the manner in which they 
view it, nations differ, — the Hindoo, for instance, con- 
templates it with apath}^ the savage of the Congo with 
pride, the Japanese with a stern sense of a grave dut}', 
the Englishman with horror and pity, — but the crime 
has its roots in all soils alike, and flourishes under all 
skies. But that really grand sj^stem of legalized self- 
murder w^hich was for ages the privilege of all who felt 
wounded in their honor, gives the Japanese a horrible 
pre-eminence in the Hara-kiri, and crime though we call 
it, there was much to admire in the statel}" heroism of 
those orderly suicides, notable for their fine apprecia- 
tion of the dignit}^ of Death, their reverent courtesy to 
his awful terrors, and sublime scorn for pain of body. 
From their infancy the}^ looked forward to suicide as a 
terrible probability, the great event for which through 
the intervening years they had to prepare themselves. 
They learned by heart all the nice etiquette of the Hara- 



The Eara-Kiri 333 



kiri : Jiow they must do this, not that, stab themselves 
from left to right, and not from right to left. Strangely 
fascinating, indeed, are the " Tales of Old Japan," and 
among them most terrible is the account of ' ' the hon- 
orable institution of the Hara-kiri." I will try to de- 
scribe it, keeping as well as I can the tone of Japanese 
thought : — 

In the days of Ashikaga the Shiogun, when Japan 
was vexed by a civil war, and prisoners of high rank 
were every daj^ being put to shameful deaths, was in- 
stituted the ceremonious and honorable mode of suicide 
by disembowelling, known as Seppuku or Hara-kiri, an 
institution for which, as the old Japanese historian sa3^s, 
" men in all truth should be very grateful. To put his 
enem}^, against whom he has cause for enmity, to death, 
and then to disembowel himself, is the duty of every 
Samurai." 

Are you a Daimio or a Hatamoto, or one of the 
higher retainers of the Shiogun, it is your proud priv- 
ilege to commit suicide within the precincts of the 
palace. If you are of an inferior rank, you may do it 
in the palace garden. Everything has been made ready 
for you. The white-wanded enclosure is marked out ; 
the curtain is stretched ; the white cloth, with the soft 
crimson mats piled on it, is spread ; the long wooden 
candlesticks hold lighted tapers ; the paper lanterns 
throw a faint light around. Behind j'on paper screen 
lies hidden the tra}^ with the fatal knife, the bucket to 
hold your head, the incense-burner to conceal the raw 
smell of blood, and the basin of warm water to cleanse 
the spot. With tender care has been spread the mat- 
ting on which you will walk to the spot, so that you 



334 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

need not wear your sandals. Some men when on their 
way to disembowel themselves suffer from nervousness, 
so that the sandals are liable to catch in the matting 
and trip them up. This would not look well in a brave 
man, so the matting is smoothly stretched. Indeed it is 
almost a pleasure to walk on it. 

Your friends have come in by the gate Umbammon, 
" the door of the warm basin," and are waithig in their 
hempen dresses of ceremony to assist you to die like a 
man. You must die as quickly too as possible, and 
your friends will be at your elbow to see that you do not 
disgrace yourself and them by fumbUng with the knife, 
or stabbing yourself with too feeble a thrust. They 
have made sure that no such mishap shall befall. They 
will be tenderly compassionate, but terribly stern. 
They will guard you while your dying declaration is 
being read ; if you are fainting, they will support you, 
lest 3'our enemies should say you were afraid of death. 
But do not trust to your old friendship with those 
around you ; do not try to break away from the sound 
of those clearly spoken sentences ; for if 3'ou do, your 
friends will knock you down, and while you are grovel- 
ling on the mats, will hew 3'Our head off with their 
heavy-handled swords. They will hold yon down and 
stab you to death. Remember this, — you are to die, 
hut you will not he allowed to disgrace yourself. 

You are here an honored guest. The preparations for 
your death are worthy of a Mikado. But you must not 
presume upon the courtes}^ shown 3'ou. It is merely 
one half of a contract, the other being that 3'OU shall 
die like a Samurai. If 3'ou shirk }'our share of the con- 
tract, your friends will break theirs, and will strike you 
to the earth like the coward you are. 



Tlie Eara-Kiri. 335 



See, the tapers are lit ! Are you quite ready to die? 
Then take your way along that spotless. carpet. It will 
lead you to the " door of the practice of virtue." Yours 
is the place of honor on the piled rugs — in the centre 
of your friends. How keenly they fix their eyes upon 
you. It is their duty to see that you are dead before 
those tapers are out. Those tapers cannot last another 
fifteen minutes. Be seated. Here is your old school- 
mate, Kotsuke, coming to you with the dreadful tray. 
How sternly his lips are closed ! You must not speak 
to him. Stretch out your hand to the ghttering knife. 
Behind you, your relatives are baring their strong arms. 
You cannot see them, but they are there, and their 
heavy-handled swords are poised above you. Stretch 
out your hand. Why hesitate? You must take the 
knife. Have you it firmly in your grasp ? Then strike ! 
Deep to the handle, let the keen blade sink— wait a 
minute with the knife in the wound that all your friends 
assembled in the theatre before you may see it is really 
there — now draw it across your body to the right side 
— turn the broad blade in the wound, and now trail it 

slowty upwards. 

Are you sickening with pain? ah! your head droops 
forward, a groan is struggUng through the clenched 
teeth, when swift upon the bending neck descends the 
merciful sword of a friend ! 

A Samurai must not be heard to groan from pain. 

How different from the respectful applause that greets 
the Japanese self-murderer is the first sentiment of 
healthy aversion that is aroused in Enghsh men and 
women by the news of a suicide. It is true that some- 
times, at the first glance, the preceding circumstances 
compel our scorn or provoke us into only a disdainful 



336 Idle Hours under tlic Punhah. 

commisei'ation with the victim, but pity is sure to fol- 
low. For the Hara-kiri is always pathetic ; and if the 
suicide be a woman, how tenderly the feeling of pity is 
intensified ! 

Take such a case, for instance, as that of Mary Aird. 
Happily married, a loving mother, she yet threw her 
young life awaj^ in a sudden impulse of groundless 
apprehension for the future. 

Mary Aird's letter, in which she announced . to her 
husband her dreadful intention, hardly reads like a 
suicide's last word to those she loved best ; and the 
miserably inadequate reason she gives for putting an 
end to her life makes the sad document intensely pa- 
thetic. " Do not think hardly of me, Will, when I tell 
you I am going to throw mj^self over Westminster 
Bridge. Look after our two poor little children. Pop 
and George, and tell Bessie I want her to look after them 
for you. Cheer up, dear Will; you will get on better 
without me. There will be one trouble less. God 
bless you ! " Such a letter as that, had that been all, 
would have gone far to prove what some have asserted, 
that suicides are not of necessit}^, and from the fact alone, 
insane. But there was a saving sentence. The poor 
woman feared she could never meet her household ex- 
penses, because a pitiful debt of six shiUings had 
"thrown out her accounts for the week. Moreover," 
said she, "troubles are coming." There really were no 
greater troubles than all mothers look forward to with 
hope, and back upon with pride. Yet Mary Aird was 
.dismayed for the moment at the thought of them, and 
seeing before her so easy a path to instant and never- 
ending rest, carried with her to the grave the infant 
that would soon have owed her the sweet debt of life. 



The Eara-Kiri. 337 



It is impossible, being human, for any to read tlie 
brief story witlioiit feeling the tenderest pity for the 
poor sister, wearied all of a sodden of this working 
world, fainting under the burden, as she supposed it, of 
exceptional, insurmountable misfortunes. Had any 
one met her on the way to death, and, knowing her 
case, offered her six shillings, she might have perhaps 
turned back, and been now the happy wife and happy 
mother that she was. She had her secret, however, hid- 
den deep away in her heart — the secret that, by her own 
death, she would (as she thought) release those she 
loved best from many of the troubles of life — the secret 
that her duty to husband and children, the " poor little 
children Pop and George," called upon her for the in- 
stant sacrifice of her life ! In other forms the same 
unhesitating resignation of life presents itself to us as 
heroism of a grand type ; but in the piteouslj^ small 
-scale of the surrounding circumstances, and even the 
familiarity of the nature of the death, the grandeur of 
such a sacrifice is lost, and we feel only pit}^ for the 
unhappy creature thus needlessly exchanging her bright 
home for the grave. False sentiment tempts men often 
to magnifj^ the bravery of self-inflicted death, forgetting 
that the insanity which makes suicide so pitiful robs it 
also of all that commands admiration. In itself the 
crime is detestable, not only as high treason against 
the Creator, inasmuch as, to quote the main argument 
of the Pagan moralists, we betray at the first summons 
of danger the life it was given us to guard, but also as 
profaning the nobihty of our nature. Man is born with 
the strong instinct of living, and, as happy, careless 
childhood is left behind, serious and tender interests 
grow round the individual life, each of which makes it 

22 



338 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

a more precious possession, and, b}^ admitting others to 
share in its troubles and jo^^s, robs the owner of all 
claim to dispose of it as if it were his own, undivided 
and intact. In death itself there is nothing for hopeful 
and helpful men and women, the workers of the world, 
to be afraid of. Men fear death as children fear to go 
in the dark, and witli as much reason. But this manly 
disregard of superstitious terrors should not degenerate 
into the holding of life cheap, nor, under the sudden 
pressure of unusual circumstances, make us lose sight 
of that bright star of hope which, if we will only look 
ahead, shines always over to-morrow. 

To some races such hopeful prospects seem impossible, 
and, in the East, especiall}^, the first summons of the 
enemj^ finds the garrison ready to yield. This frequency 
of suicide, however, and the general indifference to the 
crime as a crime, are among the surest signs of inferi- 
ority. All savage tribes, and even some of the nations 
of the East, though more advanced in civilization, fly 
to death as the first resource in trouble. They seek the 
relief of the grave before having sought any other. But 
the circumstances of their lives, with religion or super- 
stition teaching them that fate predestines everything, 
and magnifying the most trivial occurrences into calami- 
ties from which there is no appeal, often surround their 
deaths with incidents so picturesque and quaint that they 
deceive the judgment, and exalt the paltry suicide into 
an heroic surrender of life. 

Such a one is, perhaps, that student's death up in the 
cloudy wilderness within Blencathara. He had to leave 
college to go into a trade that was hateful to him ; but 
rather than live apart from his books, he climbed one 
morning up to the misty heights, taking with him his 



The Hara-Kiri 339 



^schj^lus, Apollonius, and Caesar, and having read 
them till daylight failed, made a last pillow for his head 
of the three yolumes, and took a fatal dose of laudanum. 
Some again, by the terrible blackness of the clouds 
that had gathered over life, seem almost excused, as 
the crime of Jocasta against herself, or the death of 
Nero ; while others — like those of Dr. Brown, who had 
prognosticated the ruin of England, and was so morti- 
fied by the brilliant successes of the Pitt administration 
that he cut his throat ; and the Colonel in Dr. Darwin's 
" Zoonomia," who blew his brains out because he could 
not eat muffins without suffering from indigestion — 
tend to the positively ludicrous. We are thus often be- 
trayed, from one cause or another, into forgetting for 
the moment that the act of suicide is really only one of 
impatience with the crosses of life, and a confession of 
defeat. Immeasurably sad it often is, as in the case of 
Mary Aird ; but in spite of the pathos surrounding the 
unhappy incident I have selected as typicallj^ pathetic, 
it is better to look at it gravely. We would, of course, 
far rather see in it only a young mother sacrificing her 
dearest treasures, life and the love of husband and child, 
under the delusion that her death was for their benefit ; 
but we are compelled to see in it much more than that. 
Lurking under the delusion lies the faint-hearted ap- 
prehension that to-morrow would be, and must be, just 
the same as to-day, a fear of the future that underlies 
every wilful suicide, and is at once the jnost disastrous 
and deplorable frame of the human mind. If troubles 
are ahead, the more need for, the more honor in, a reso- 
lute hold on life. Our race does not readil}^ yield to 
despair, and ever}^ suicide among us, even though it be 
a woman's, takes something therefore from our national 



340 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

character ; and, in spite of an unavoidable feeling of 
sincerest pity for those who reckon death among the 
boons of nature, we ought to condemn with all our 
hearts the ignoble abandonment of life by those 
amongst us who have not the courage to wait and see if 
to-morrow will not cure to-day. 



My Wife's Birds. 341 



VI. 

MY WIFE'S BIRDS. 

A REMINISCENCE. 

MY wife once made op her mind that she wanted 
a bird. She had, she told me, many reasons 
for wanting one. One was that the landlady's son was 
apprenticed to a bird-cage maker, and had promised to 
use all his influence with his employer — who, the land- 
lady told my wife, was a very civil man — to get us 
a cage cheap. Another reason for having a bird was 
that the old groundsel man at the corner asked her 
every day if she would not buy a penn'orth of the 
weed for her dear little birds, and that she felt an 
impostor (inasmuch as she had no bird) every time 
she met the groundsel man. 

" But, my dear," said I, " you have not got a bird ; 
and if you only tell him so, he will give up annoying 
you." 

"He does not annoy me at all," she replied ; " he is 
a very nice, respectable old man indeed, and I am sure 
no one could have been angry at his way of asking 
you to buy his groundsel — and then it was so beauti- 
fully fresh ! " 

"But you don't mean to say you bought any?" I 
asked in surprise. 

"Yes, I did," was the answer; "it was so beauti- 
fully fresh — and I did so want to have a bird — and 



342 Idle Hours under the Punhah. 

so, whenever I refuse to buy any now, he thinks I am 
too mean to give my birds a penn3^worth of groundsel 
now and then. It is very cruel to birds to keep them 
without an}^ green food at all." 

I felt at the time that there was something wrong 
about this line of argument, but could not quite see 
where to fix the error without going ver}^ far back to 
the beginning (though women, it seems to me, alwaj^s 
do this), so I let it pass, not thinking it worth while to 
point out again that, as she had no bird, the grounsel 
seller's animadversions and suspicions were without 
foundation, and therefore absurd. 

And then my wife went on to give other reasons for 
wanting to have a bird ; but the only one I can remem- 
ber just now was to the effect that the bird would not 
give an}^ trouble to anybody but herself, and that it 
could not possibl}' matter to me whether she had a bird 
or not. I am not quite sure that I have given that rea- 
son right, but it is about as near as I generallj^ get to 
some of m}" wife's reasons for things. 

" It will, 3'ou see," she repeated, as she cracked an 
Q^g^ "be no trouble to anybod}^ but myself. I will 
look after it mj^self and — " 

' ' The Lord in His pitiful mercy keep an eye upon 
that bird I " I piousty ejaculated. 

" Oh, John ! — and of course I will feed it and wash 
it — its cage, I mean ; not feed the cage, you know, but 
wash it : and when I go out to do the housekeeping for 
ourselves,"- — which, by the wa}-, always seems to me 
to consist in meeting friends at the gate and then going 
off with them to look at new music, — "I will do the 
bird's housekeeping, too." 

Now, I really never had any objection to a bird from 



My Wife's Birds. 343 

the first. On the contrar}^, I like birds, — little ones. 
But my wife has, all through, insisted on it that I do 
not love " God's creatures," as she calls them, and took 
from the first a certain complacent pride in having made 
me more Christian-like in this matter. " You won't hurt 
it, will you, John?" she pleaded, pathetically, when she 
hung up a linnet. 

^^Hiirt it ! " I said, in astonishment, for I am a very 
Buddhist in my tenderness to animals. " On the con- 
trary—" 

" Yes, dear, I know how you hate them; and you are 
a sweet, good old darling to say yo\x love them, just to 
please me." 

"You are quite mistaken," I began, "in suppos- 
ing-" 

"No, I am not, you good old duck, for you always 
pretended just in the same way that you liked Lucy (my 
wife's cousin), though I know you don't, for soon after 
we were married, I remember you called her a gadabout 
and a gossip." 

And the end of it was that I was mean enough to 
accept the virtues of self-denial and consideration thus 
thrust upon me. Consequentl}' , I have had ever since 
to affect a condescension whenever I take notice of the 
birds, although when my wife is not there I waste a 
good deal of time over the pretty things. 

But " God's creatures," after all, is a term that you 
can lump most things under. And if my wife had drawn 
a distinction between the linnet and her great parrot, 
more hke a vulture than a cage-bird, I would have can- 
didly confessed to a difference in my regard for the two 
fowls. Linnets are very harmless, I fancy. At any 
rate, ours never does anything more outrageous than 



344 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

splash its water and seed about of a morning. For the 
rest of the day it is mostly hopping off the floor on to 
the perch and back again, except when you go to look 
at it close. It then hops only sideways off the perch 
on to the wires of the cage, and back again. 

But the parrot ! It is dead now — and it took as 
much burying as a horse — was more of a reptile than 
a bird, I should say. At any rate, it had very few 
feathers on it after a bit, and the way it worried my 
wife's Maltese terrier was most unusual, I fancy, in a 
bird. The first time it pounced down on Tiny, who was 
only going to eat some of the parrot's pudding, we 
thought it was going to eat the dog, though I found, on 
looking it up since, that parrots never eat other animals, 
as vultures and other birds do sometimes. But it wasn't. 
It was only pulling fluff off the dog. But Tiny's fluff 
grows so fast, and he is so light, that we generally pick 
him up by it. And so, when the parrot began to pull 
at it, it rolled the dog all about, and as one of the bird's 
claws got caught in the fluff of the dog and the other in 
the fluff of the hearth-rug, they got rolled up in the cor- 
ner of it, — the terrier and the parrot together ; and the 
noises that proceeded from those two, and the confusion 
there was of hearth-rug and fluff and feathers, defies all 
description. Getting them unmixed took us ever so 
long. We had first of all to give the parrot a spoon 
to hold in its mouth, and then a fork in one claw, while 
we undid the other. And as soon as it was undone, it 
got its claw fixed round my thumb, and then, dropping 
the spoon, it took hold of my cuff with its beak. And 
when I had got the bird off me, it got fastened on to my 
wife ; for the thing was so frightened at itself, it wanted 
something, it didn't matter what, to hold on to. But 



My Wife's Birds. 345 



at last we got it on to the curtains, and there it hung 
half the morning, sajing to itself, as it alwaj's does 
when it's put out, "Polly's very sick; poor Pollj-'s 
going to die." Tiny, in the mean time, had disappeared 
into the scullery under the sink, and to the last day of 
the parrot's life, whenever the dog heard the parrot 
scream, it used to make for the same spot. And as the 
parrot was mostly screeching all day, the dog pretty 
well lived under the sink. But the parrot died at last, 
poor beast. 

The few feathers it had on must have had something 
to do with it, I fancy. If I were a bird, I know, and 
had so few feathers, T should die too. It does not 
seem much worth living with so few on. One could 
hardly call one's self a bird. 

So one evening, when I came home, I found Jennj' in 
tears, and there on the hearth-rug, was the poor old 
parrot, dead, and about as bald as a bird could be — 
except in a pie. I asked Jenny how it all happened ; 
but she couldn't speak at first for crying, and when she 
did tell me, it was heart-breaking to hear her sobs be- 
tween the words. 

" You know," she began, " Polly hasn't been eating 
enough for a long time, and to-day, when I came in 
from my housekeeping, I saw him looking very sad 
about something. So I called him, and he came down 
off his perch. But he couldn't hop ; he was too weak, 
so he walked quite slowly across the floor to me — and 
so unsteadilj^ ! I knew there was something dreadful 
going to happen. And when he got to my feet he 
couldn't climb up ray dress as he generally does. And 
I said to him, ' Polly, what's the matter with you? ' and 
he said " — but here she broke down altogether for a bit 



346 Idle Hours under the Punkali. 

— " and he looked up at me and said, ' Polly's very sick,' 
And when I picked Mm up he was as light as — oh ! so 
light. And he sat on my lap without moving, only 
breathing very hard. And then after a little, I saw his 
head drooping, so I touched him to wake him up. And 
he started up, and shook himself so hard that he rolled 
over on his side, and then I heard him saj'ing something 
to himself, so I put down my head to listen. And he 
opened his eye again quite wide, and looked at me just 
as if he knew who I was quite well, and whispered to me, 
' poor Polly's going to die.' And then he shut his wings 
up tight, and stretched out one leg after the other — 
and — and died." 

I was ver}' sorry for it, after he was really dead, for 
Jenn}^ was very fond of him, and the parrot, I think, 
was very fond of her. So when I looked round and 
saw Tiny eating the dead bird's pudding, I gave a 
screech like the parrot used to give, and the little wretch 
shot off in a flurry of fluff to the sink, where we let him 
stay until we had buried poor Poll}^ under the laurel- 
tree. Jenny proposed to have it stuffed ; but consider- 
ing the proposal of stuffing such a naked bird absurd, I 
evaded the suggestion, nor did she press it. 

But all this time I have been anticipating a great deal. 
It was the first mention of the parrot that set me off on 
the digression. I have not yet told you how my wife 
got her birds, or what birds she has got. 

"Well, I had given m}^ consent, you remember, to a 
bird being bought ; so immediately after breakfast, m}^ 
wife went out to choose one — " a little one," she said. 
Bat before she went out she confided her want to the 
landlady, who, going out herself soon after, also in- 
terested herself in the selection, and told a few bird- 



My Wife's Birds. 347 



fanciers to send up some birds to look at — little ones ; 
moreover, before going out, she told her son that my 
wife wanted a bird — a little one — so when he went to 
the cage-maker's he mentioned the fact, and during the 
day the cage-maker told about twenty bird-fanciers who 
came in on business that he could put them in the way 
of a customer — meaning my wife. '^ She wants a little 
bird," he said. 

Well, I woke next morning a little earlier than usual, 
and with a vague general feeling that I was somewhere 
in the country — probably at my uncle's. All the air 
outside seemed to be full of twittering, just as I remem- 
bered hearing in the early mornings at my uncle's place 
in the country where sparrows were as thick as the leaves' 
in the ivy on the house, and the robins and wrens, and 
those kinds of birds, used to swarm in the shi'ubbery. 
My wife was awake too, and as soon as she found me 
stirring she began (as she does on most mornings) to 
tell me a dream. I always find that other people's 
dreams haven't, as a rule, much plot in them, and so 
they don't tell well. Things always seem to come about 
and end up somehow without much reason. 

And what my wife's dream was about I did not ex- 
actly understand at the time, but it was about the Tropi- 
cal Court at the Crystal Palace. She dreamt that it 
was on fire, and all the parrots had gone mad with 
fright and were flying about, and so she ran down to the 
station, with all the creatures after her ; but there was 
no i^oom for her in the train, as all the parrots, and love- 
birds, and lories, and paroquets, and cockatoos, and 
macaws of the Palace were scrambling for places, and 
there was such a noise and flurrying of feathers she was 
quite bewildered ; and though she told the guard that 



348 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

the birds were travelling without tickets, he only called 
out " all right," to the engine driver, and the train 
started off. But this frightened all the birds so that 
the}^ came streaming out through the windows and lamp- 
holes, and flew about the station till it looked as if all 
the colors out of the advertisements had got loose and 
were flj'ing around in strips and patches ! And so she 
ran upstairs to the omnibus, but all the cockatoos and 
things went with her, and it was just the same here, for 
when she was going to get in, the conductor said it was 
full inside, though, when she looked at the window she 
couldn't see a soul, but when she opened the door and 
looked in she found it was full of parrots and macaws ; 
and though she warned the conductor that none of the 
birds had got any money, he did not seem to take any 
notice of her, and only sounded his bell, and so the 'bus 
started. But this frightened the birds again, so that they 
all came streaming out through the door, and flew up 
the street with her to the cab-stand ; and there it was 
just the same — and everywhere all day it was just the 
same ; but though she kept trying to explain to people, 
in an exasperated and, she felt, unsatisfactory wa}^, 
that it was absurd and unreasonable for all these birds, 
which she had nothing to do with, to be following her 
about so, no one took any adequate interest in the mat- 
ter, or seemed to think it at all irregular or annoying. 
Her conversations on the subject with policemen were 
equall}^ inconclusive and absurd ; and so the da}^ went 
on — and very exhausting it was, she said, with the 
eternal clamor of the birds, and the smothering feeling 
of having a cloud of feathery things fluttering round 
you, and so — 

I had been listening all this time after only a very 



My Wife's Birds. 349 



drows}^ fashion, but while she talked there stole over me 
an impression that there was a strange confusion of bird 
voices about the premises, and just as she had got to 
the words " and so," and was taking breath to remem- 
ber what happened next in her dream, there came from 
down below a very babel of fowls' languages. In every 
tongue spoken by birds from China to Peru, we heard 
screams, squeaks, hootings, and Growings, while behind 
and through all we were aware of a multitudinous chat- 
tering, twittering and chirping, accompanied by a sober 
obligato of cooing. I stared at my wife and she at me. 
Was I asleep? 

Pinching is a good thing, I remembered, so I 
pinched my wife. There was no doubt of her being 
awake. I told her apologetically that I had pinched 
her in order to see if I was awake, and she was begin- 
ning to explain to me that I ought to have pinched 
myself; when we heard a knock at the door. ' ' If j^ou 
please, sir" (it was Mary), " but has a cockytoo gone 
into your dressing-room? It's got away from the bird- 
man, —which, sir, if you please there's several of them 
at the door ! " 

All the time I was dressing the volucrine clamor con- 
tinued unabated, and when I came downstairs I was not 
surprised at the sight that awaited me. The passage 
was filled with bird-cages ; and through the front door, 
which was open, I saw that the front "garden" was 
filled also, and that round the railings had collected a 
considerable mob of children, whitewashers' assistants, 
and errand-bo3^s. I went to the dining-room window 
and looked out. My appearance was the signal for 
every bird-man to seize at once two cages and hold 



350 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

them lip for inspection. The contents of the cages 
screamed wildlj' ; all* their friends on the ground 
screamed in sympath}^, and the mob outside cheered 
the birds on to further demonstrations, by ill-naturedly 
imitating various cries. 

I kept away from the window, therefore, and waited 
till my wife came down. Her delight at the exhibition 
seemed to me a little misplaced, the more so as she in- 
sisted on holding a levee at once. I began my break- 
fast therefore alone, but I hope I ma}' never have such 
a meal again. Every other bird, being warranted tame, 
was allowed to leave its cage, and ver}- soon there was 
a parrot in the sugar basin, three macaws on the chan- 
deliers, and a cockatoo on the back of each chair. The 
food on the table attracted a jackdaw, who dragged a 
rasher of bacon into the jelly-glass before his designs 
were suspected, and one wretched bird finding me out 
under the table, climbed up the leg of my trousers by 
his beak and claws. But my wife got bewildered at 
last, and appealed to me to settle matters. I did so 
summarily b}^ explaining that m}' wife wanted onl}' one 
bird, and that a little one., — " a linnet or something of 
that kind." 

The disgust of the bird fanciers was instantly visible, 
and every man proceeded gloomily to repossess himself 
of his property. This was not so easy, however, as let- 
ting the birds go, and entailed an hour's hunting of par- 
rots from corner to corner. Two cockatoos slipped 
down behind the sideboard and proceeded to fight 
there. The}^ were only got out after moving the side- 
board (the contents being previously taken out) , and 
when they appeared were dirty beyond recognition and 
covered with cobwebs and fluff. But we found a long- 



My Wife's Birds. 351 

missing salt spoon. At last, however, all seemed satis- 
factorily disposed of, when it was discovered that one 
of the cages was still empty, and a pensive voice from 
the chandelier drew all eyes upward. It was then dis- 
covered that a parrot had got its body inside one of 
the globes, and I volunteered to release it. So stand- 
ing up on a chair, 1 took hold of the protruding tail 
and lifted the bird out. No sooner, however, did it 
find itself released than it made one violent effort to 
escape, and succeeded, leaving the tail in my hands ! 

I hastened to apologize and to offer the owner the 
tail, but the man would not accept either the apolog}' or 
the feathers. On the contrary, he insisted that as I had 
spoiled the bird for sale I ought now to bu}^ it. 

And thus it was that we became possessed of the bird 
whose death I have already narrated. At first it had a 
dog's life of it. I was ver}^ angry with it for foisting 
itself upon me ; my wife disliked it for its tailless con- 
dition ; while the parrot itself suspected both of us as 
having designs upon its remaining feathers. But my 
wife's heart warmed to it at last, and the bird recipro- 
cated the attachment. And when it died we were really 
sorry, and so, I think, was the parrot. 

Meanwhile my wife was not satisfied with the pur- 
chase, and proceeded to select another bird for her- 
self The result was a canary, as I feared ; and lest 
the canary should be dull with only the parrot, a bull- 
finch was also bought ; and finally, for no better reason 
that I saw than that " it would be just as easy to at- 
tend to three birds as to two," a Unnet. Of course 
the canary proved to be a hen bird, and the linnet, I 
still believe, is a sparrow. But of the bullfinch there 
can be no doubt. He looks a bullfinch all over. 



352 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

The bullfinch had only just been caught. I thought 
this a point against the bird. But my wife thought it 
all in its favor. " For now," she said, " we can train 
it exactly as we like." 

Meanwhile the bird, being quite uneducated, was 
dashhig about in its cage, and little feathers came float- 
ing down, and all the cage furniture was in a heap in 
the corner. There was evidently a very clear field for 
instruction, and my wife was eager to begin at once. 

" Bullfinches are ver}^ fond of hemp seeds," said she 
oracularl}^, and proceeded to offer one to the bird. The 
result was eminentlj^ discouraging, for the terrified crea- 
ture went into fits. For a time my wife was very 
patient, and stood there with the slippery little seed 
between her fingers. The bird, exhausted at last with 
its frantic eflforts at escape, was on the floor of the cage, 
panting from fear and fatigue. 

" I am sure he will get quite tame," said my wife, 
inspirited b}^ this cessation of the bird's struggles. 
" Pretty BuUj^ ; " and she changed the seed to the left 
hand, for the other was tired. The motion was suflS- 
eient, however, to set the bird oflf in another paroxj'^sm 
of fluttering, to which in the same wa}^ succeeded 
another relapse. And so it went on for half an hour, 
this contest between the wild thing's terror and the 
woman's patience. And the bird won the day. 

" You are a very stupid little bird," said my wife 
solemnly and emphatically to the open-beaked creature, 
as she withdrew from the strife to make acquaintance 
with the canar}^ 

The canar}" was of another sort altogether, an old 
hen bird, born and bred in captivity, an artifieial person 
without a scrap of soul. 



My Wifes Birds. / 353 

Nor did its vocal accomplishments recommend it; 
for being a hen it only chirped, and being very old, it 
did this drearily. My wife resolved, therefore, to 
change it. She was offered ninepence for it, and in- 
dignantly refused the sum. Finally, she allowed it to 
go, with seven and sixpence added, in exchange for a 
young cock bird. 

The linnet meanwhile had moulted, and as its new 
feathers were a long time coming, it came to be looked 
upon as a shabby creature and the inferior among our 
pets. It did not resent the invidious comparison nor 
retaliate for the evident preference shown to the rest, 
but sitting on its perch at the back window, chuckled 
good-naturedly to itself all day long, going to sleep 
early, and growing prodigiously plump. 

The bullfinch and canar}^, however, became soon part 
of our lives, and every new habit or prettiness was noted 
and cherished. Both were easily tamed. A friend came 
in one day, and, going to speak to the bullfinch, was 
shocked at its wildness. 

*' Why don't jovl tame it?" he asked. 

"How ?" inquired my wife. " I have been trying 
hard, but I don't think they will ever begin to care for 
me." 

" Oh ! starve them," was the reply. 

" Starve them ! never ! " said m}^ wife firmly. 

But I made a note of the advice, and that very after- 
noon, as soon as my wife had left the luncheon table, I 
nearly emptied the seed-boxes into the fire. Next morn- 
ing m}^ wife noticed, without suspecting anj^thing, how 
completely the birds had eaten up their allowances. I 
was of course absorbed in m}' newspaper. But when 
my wife went out to do her housekeeping, I took the 

23 



354 Idle Hours under the Fanlzali. 

libert}' of turning round the seed-boxes, so that the birds, 
who meanwhile had been eating voraciously, could get 
no more. The barbarous fact escaped observation, and, 
remorse gnawing at m}^ heart, I awaited the morrow 
with anxiety. Would the birds be tame? But the 
thought kept recurring to me in the night watches — 
would they he dead'^ They were not dead, however: on 
the contrar3^, they were very much alive. Indeed their 
extraordinary^ sprightliness attracted m}' wife's atten- 
tion, and all through breakfast she kept drawing my 
attention to the conversation being kept up by the two 
birds. 

" How happ3' they are together ! " she said. " And 
how hungry ! " I thought. 

Breakfast over, she proceeded to attend to her birds, 
and then the turned boxes were discovered. 

"Oh!" she said, "how stupid I have been! Just 
imagine, these poor birds have had no seed all day I I 
forgot to turn their seed-boxes round ! " 

I cut short her self-reproaches and expressions of 
sj^mpathy. 

"Never mind, dear: it has done them no harm 
apparently- . Besides, we can see now whether starving 
does reall}^ tame them. Offer the bullfinch a hemp seed 
in 3'our fingers." 

And the great experiment was tried. I approached to 
watch. The hungry bird recognized his favorite morsel, 
but the fingers had still terrors for his untutored mind. 
" Have a little patience," I said, as I saw my wife's face 
clouding. The bullfinch mind was grievouslj- agitated. 
He was verj^ hungry-, and there close to him was a 
hemp seed. But then it was in those dangerous-looking 
hands. An emptj^ stomach and timid heart fought out 



My Wife's Birds. 355 

the point between them, but the engagement was obsti- 
nately contested. The issue trembled a thousand times 
in the balance. The bullfinch, after sitting for ten min- 
utes with his head very much on one side, would sidle 
up to the hemp seed and seem on the very point of tak- 
ing it, when a movement of the dog on the hearth-rug, 
or the opening of a door, would startle it into its orig- 
inal alarm. My wife held out bravety, and her patience 
was suddenly and unexpectedly rewarded. The bull- 
finch had evidently thought the matter out to the end, 
and had decided that death bj^ starvation was prefer- 
able to tempting the terrors of the pretty fingers that 
offered him food. He was sitting gloomily at the far- 
ther end of the perch. But, on a sudden — perhaps it 
was a twinge inside — he brightened up, pulled himself 
together, and with a desperate effort pecked at the seed. 
He did not get it, but the effort had broken the spell, 
and he soon returned emboldened, and taking more de- 
liberate aim this time, extracted the prize. After this 
it was plain sailing, and for the rest of the morning, 
my wife was busy feeding the domesticated bullfinch 
from her fingers. Meanwhile, the canary had taken its 
first lesson, and whether it was that hunger was more 
overpowering, or that (as has since proved the case) it 
took the bullfinch for its model, it ate from the hand as if 
to the manner born. The success was complete, and my 
wife set apart to-morrow for another starvation prepara- 
tory to further instruction. But her heart was too soft, 
and to this day the birds have never been stinted again. 
Their education, therefore, began and ended together. 
But I cannot sa}^ that I am sorry ; for I can think of no 
accomplishment that would make them more charming 
company. The cage doors are always open, and the 



356 Idle Hours under the PunhaJi, 

small creatures spend their day as they choose, the bull- 
finch chmbing about among the picture cords, the 
canar}' gazing upon his own reflection in the mirror. 

Their characters have developed in this freedom, and 
their individuality is as comic as it is well defined. 
The bullfinch, sturdy of body, bull-necked, and thick- 
legged, ranges the room as if all it contained was his 
own by right of conquest. There is not an article in it 
■which he does not make use of as a perch or plaything, 
and in everj^ gesture shows himself at home and in pos- 
session. As soon as the loaf is put down on the table, 
he hops on to it, and when mj' wife replaces the milk- 
jug, he perches upon that. From there to the nearest 
tea-cup is only a short hop, and so he makes the round 
of the breakfast table. When the cloth is removed, he 
waits, chirping impatiently for his groundsel, and even 
before it can be arranged for him, he is in the thick of 
it, his beak stuffed with the flossy flower-heads. The 
bath, meanwhile, is being prepared, and no sooner is ;t 
down on the ground than he perches on the edge, tests 
its temperature, and pronounces his approval — but 
does not often bathe. His seed-box has meanwhile 
been replenished, and in it every morning are put a 
few hemp seeds. No sooner is it in the cage, than the 
bullfinch has gone in, and plunging his head down into 
the seed, is \)\xsy picking out the favorite grains. Lest 
one should be concealed at the bottom, he jerks out as 
much of the contents as he can, and deliberate Ij^ empties 
the remainder by beakfuls. Satisfied that no hemp seed 
remains, he comes out, and fljing to the nearest picture, 
commences the gymnastics that occup}^ the greater part 
of the day. By sunset he is alwaj's back in his cage 
again, and when my wife goes to shut his door, he 



My Wife's Birds. 357 

opens his beak at her threateningly, showing a ridicu- 
lous pink throat, and hissing like a miniature goose. 
This is not the routine of any particular day, but of 
every day, and so completely has he asserted his posi- 
tion as one of the family, that the ornaments are ar- 
ranged in reference to his tastes, and when I talked of 
removing the picture from over the door, the project 
was at once thrown aside, " for that is Bully's favorite 
perch." 

The canary is a curious contrast. He has as much 
spirit as the bullfinch, for he resented the first attempt 
at oppression — it was a question of priority of bathing 
— with such elan^ that the bullfinch ceased from troub- 
ling, and the two are close friends on the honorable 
terms of mutual respect. But the canary is conciliator^^ 
and retiring. He comes on the breakfast table when it 
takes his fancy to do so, but he does so unobtrusively, 
with all the ease of manner that betokens confidence, 
and 3 et with all the reserve and modesty of a gentle- 
man. If he wishes for a crumb he takes it, but instead 
of hopping on the loaf for it, he reaches it off the plat- 
ter from the table. His daj^ is spent before a looking- 
glass, in which he studies his own features and gestures, 
not unhappil}', but quietly, as his way is. A jar that 
holds spills is his usual resort, and, perched on it, he 
exercises himself in the harmless practice of pulling out 
the spills. He has never succeeded, but this does not 
damp his industr3\ For groundsel he has as great a 
partialit}^ as the bullfinch, but he waits for his share till 
it is put in his cage, and then onlj^ goes in at his leisure. 
The bath is a passion with him, and his energy in the 
water fills the bullfinch — who more often makes believe 
than really bathes — with such amazement, that while 



358 Idle Hours under the Punhah. 

the flurry and splash is going on he watches the canary 
with all his eyes. The canary sings beautifully, not 
with the student note that in the trained bird makes a 
room uninhabitable, but a soft, untutored song that 
nature whispered to him bar by bar, and so sweet is it 
that the matter-of-fact bullfinch alwa3's hstens with at- 
tention, until, remembering his own powers, he settles 
down in a ball of feathers on some favorite vase, and 
chuckles obstinatelj" through a rustic lay. But my wife 
ought to ha^e written the account of her own birds her- 
self, for she knows them better than I. 

And the little things have found out how gentle and 
loving she is to God's creatures ; and when the room 
is quiet, and she is sitting working, the bullfinch will 
leave ofl" his scrambling among the picture cords, and 
the canar}^ his fruitless tugging at the spills, to sit down 
on her lap and shoukler, and tell her, as they best can, 
how fond thej^ are of her. 

For me they entertain onl}^ a distant regard ; but I 
like them immensely for all that. At an}' rate, though 
I speak of them as my wife's birds, I should feel hurt if 
any one thought that they were not my birds too. 



1 



The Legend of the Blameless Priest. 359 



vn. 

THE LEGEND OF THE BLAMELESS PRIEST.^ 

YEARS upon j^ears ago, when all the world was 
young, when Atlantis was among the chief is- 
lands of it, and the Aryans had not yet descended 
from their cradle on the roof of the world, there wan- 
dered up past the sources of the sleepy Nile the patriarch 
Kintu and his wife. For many months he travelled, he 
and his old wife, their one she-goat, and one cow, and 
carrying with them one banana and one sweet potato. 
And they were alone in their journey. 

From out the leagues of papyrus fen the ibis and the 
flamingo screamed, and through the matete-canes the 
startled crocodile plunged under the Hly-covered waves. 
Overhead circled and piped vast flocks of strange water- 
fowl, puzzled by the sight of human beings, and from 
the path before them the sulky lion hardly turned away. 
The hyenas in the rattan brakes snarled to see them 
pass, and wailing through the forests, that covered the 
face of the land, came the cry of the lonely lemur. A 
dreary, desolate country, rich in flowers and fruit, and 
surpassingly beautiful, but desolate of man. 

The elephant was the noblest in the land, and on 
the water there was none to stand before the river- 
horse. 

I This legend is founded upon the notes taken in Uganda by 
Mr. H. M. Stanley for his book " Across the Dark Continent," 
which it fell to ray pleasant lot to edit.— P. R. 



360 Idle Hours under the Pimhah. 

And so they plodded on, old Kintu and his wife, 
until, coming to where the Victoria Nj'anza spreads its 
summer sea through four degrees of latitude, flecked 
with floating groves, " purple isles of Eden," the patri- 
arch halted, and, the first time for man}' 3'ears, laid 
down his staff upon the ground. And the mark of the 
staff may still be seen, eight cubits in length, lying like 
a deep scar across the basalt boulders piled up on the 
'w6stern shore of the great lake. And then his wife 
laid down her burden, the one banana and the one po- 
tato j and the goat and the cow lay down, for they were 
all wearj^ with the journey of half a century-, during 
which they had never rested night nor day. And the 
name they gave the land they stayed at was Uganda, 
but the name of the land they came from no one 
knows. 

And then Kintu cut the banana and potato into many 
little pieces, and planted them, each piece twenty miles 
apart, and they grew so fast that the plant seemed to 
the eye to be crawling over the ground. And his wife 
had man}^ sons and daughters, and they were all born 
adult, and intermarried, so that in a few years all the 
country was filled with people. The cow and the goat 
also brought forth adult oflTspring, and these multiplied 
so fast that in the second generation every man in the 
land had a thousand head of cattle. And Kintu was 
their king, and his people called him the Blameless 
Priest ; for he wronged no one. In his land no blood 
was ever shed, for he had forbidden his people to eat 
meat, and when any sinned they were led away by their 
friends, the man with a woman, for a thousand miles, 
and left there with cuttings of the banana and the 
potato ; for they never led any one away alone, lest he 



The Legend of the Blameless Priest, 361 



should die ; and once every year, after the gathering of 
the harvest, Kintu sent messengers to the exiles to 
know how they did. So the land was at peace from 
morning to night, and there was plenty in every house. 
And the patriarch moved about among his people in 
spotless robes of white, and loved and honored by all 
as their father. 

But after a long time the young men and women grew 
wicked, for they fou.nd out the secret of making wine 
from the banana and strong drink from the palm fruit 
and fire-water from the mtama grain; and with this 
they got drunk together, and when they were drunk 
they forgot that they were Kintu' s children. And first 
of all they began to dress in bright colors, and then they 
killed the cattle for food, until at last Kintu was the 
only man in all his kingdom who was dressed in spotless 
white, and who had never shed blood. And- the wicked- 
ness increased ; for, having killed animals, they began 
to fight among themselves, and at last one day a man of 
Uganda, having got drunk with palm wine, killed one of 
his tribe with a spear. And the people rose up with a 
cry, and every man took his spear in his hand, and the 
whole land of Uganda was in an uproar, the people kill- 
ing one another. But when it was all over, and the 
morning came, they saw the dead men lying about 
among the melon plants, and were frightened, for they 
had never seen dead men before, and did not know 
what to do with them ; and then they looked about for 
the patriarch, whom all this while they had forgotten ; 
and lo ! he was gone. 

And no one would tell them whither. 

Till at last a little girl child spoke up : " I saw Kintu 
and his wife go out of the gate in the early morning, 



362 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

and with them they took a cow and a goat, a banana 
and a potato ; and Kintu said, ' This land is black with 
blood.' I ran after them, and with me was only my 
little brother Pokino, and he and I watched Kintu and 
his wife go away down by the wood to the river that 
comes from the west." 

The children had been the last to see Kintu ; for 
though every one was asked, no one had seen the 
Blameless Priest go forth except the little ones, 
Saramba, with the round eyes, and her baby brother 
Pokino. 

Then the people were in great consternation, and ran 
hither and thither, looking for the patriarch ; but he was 
never found. And when the tumult of the first lamen- 
tation was over, Chwa, the eldest son of Kintu, took 
his shield and spear, and going out into the market- 
place, shook his spear before the assembled chiefs, and 
struck his spear upon his shield to show that he was 
king. And he made all the nation into castes, and to 
two castes he gave the duty of finding Kintu. Far 
and near they sought him, crossing strange rivers and 
subduing many tribes ; but the lost patriarch was 
never seen. And when Chwa was dead, his son shook 
his spear before the people, and searched for Kintu all 
his life, and died without finding him. And thirty- 
eight kings ruled in succession over Uganda, but never 
again did human eye behold the man they sought. 

Then Ma'anda came to the throne. He was differ- 
ent from all the kings that had preceded him, for he . 
robed himself in white, and no blood might be shed 
within a mile's distance of his palace, and no man who 
had killed an animal might come within a spear's 



The Legend of the Blameless Priest. . 363 

throw of bis person. He was kind to all, to animals 
and to men alike, and they called him in Uganda 
the Good Father. He had given up the search for 
Kintu, for he knew it was hopeless ; but once a year 
he called ail the chiefs together, and warned them that 
until they gave up fighting among themselves and 
warring with other tribes, they could never hope to 
see the Blameless Priest again. 

Now one day Ma'anda dreamed strangely, and, rising 
before dawn, went to his mother and said: "I dreamt 
in the night that a peasant came to me from the forest 
and told me something that filled me with joy, but what 
it was I cannot remember." 

She asked, " When did the peasant come?" 

He answered, " Just as the hyena was crying for the 
third time." 

She said, '' But that Is not yet." 

And lo! as she spoke, from the mtama crop the 
hyena cried for the third time, — for the day was break- 
ing, —and Ma'anda's mother said, " Get ready quickly, 
and take your spear, for I can hear the peasant coming, 
and he has strange news to tell you, my son." Ma'anda 
could hear nothing ; yet he went away to get ready to 
receive the messenger. But at the door he met the 
Katekiro, the chief officer of his household, who said, 
'^ There is a madman without, who says he has news 
for the king. He is only a peasant, but will not go 
away, for he says that the king must hear his news." 

" Let him come in," said the king. And the peasant 
entered. 

" What is it? " asked Ma'anda. 

" I may not tell any one but the king and the king's 
mother : which are they ? " 



364 Idle Hours under the Punhali. 

So the king took the peasant into his mother's house, 
and having carefully seen that no one was listening, the 
peasant told his tale. 

"I went last night to cut wood in the forest, and, 
being overtaken b}^ the darkness, lay down to sleep by 
my wood. And in my sleep a person came to me and 
said, ' Follow me,' and I took up my bill-hook and^ 
went with him. And we came to an open space in the 
■forest, and in the open space I saw an old man sitting, 
and beside him, on either hand, stood a number of old 
nsen, all with spears in their hands, and they seemed to 
have just come from a long march. And though it was 
dark in the forest, it was quite light where the old men 
were ; and the old man who was sitting said to me, ' Go 
to Ma'anda, the king, and tell him to come to me with 
his mother. But let him take care that no one else, not 
even his dog, follows him. For I have that to tell him 
which will make him glad, and that to show him that no 
king of Uganda has yet been able to find.' So I laid 
down m}^ bill-hook and my head-cloth where I was 
standing, and I turned and ran swiftty from fear, and I 
did not stop till I reached the palace. Oh, great king, 
live forever." 

" Show the way," replied Ma'anda, " and we will 
follow." 

So they stole out, those three, — the peasant, the king 
and his mother, — and, thinking they were unperceived, 
crept away from the palace through the fence of the 
matete, before the sun rose and the people were up. 
But the Katekiro had watched them, and seeing the 
king go out with only the peasant and his mother, said 
to himself, "There is some treachery here. I will fol- 
low the king, so that no harm may befall him." 



The Legend of the Blameless Priest. 365 

And they all went fast through the forest together, 
and though the king kept turning round to see if any 
one was following, the Katekiro managed to keep al- 
ways out of sight, for the king's eyes were dim with 
age. And at last Ma'anda was satisfied that no one 
was behind them, and hurried on without looking back. 
And at evening they came to the spot, and the peasant 
was afraid to go on. But he pointed before him, and 
the king, looking, saw a pale light through the trees, and 
between the trees he thought he saw the figures of men 
robed in white, moving to and fro. And he advanced 
slowly towards the light, and as he got nearer it in- 
creased in brightness, and then on a sudden he found 
himself in the glade, and there before him sat the old 
man surrounded by his aged warriors, and at his feet 
lay the wood-cutter's bill-hook and head-cloth. Ma'anda 
stood astonished at the sight, and held his spear fast ; 
but a voice came to his ears, so gentle and so soft that 
his doubts all vanished, and' he came forward boldly. 

"Who art thou?" asked the old man. 

" I am Ma'anda, the king." 

"Who was the first king of Uganda?" 

" Kintu." 

" Then come nearer, for I have something to tell thee ; 
but why didst thou let any one come with thee except 
the peasant and thy mother? " 

"No one is with me," replied Ma'anda; "I kept 
looking behind me as I came, and I am sure that no 
one followed us." 

"Well, then, come here and look me in the face. I 
have something to tell thee from Kintu, and thou shalt 
th3^self see Kintu to-day ; but first— why didst thou let 
any man follow thee ? " 



366 Idle Hours under the Punkah. 

And Ma'anda, who was impatient, answered quickly : 

" No one followed me" 

" But a man did follow thee," replied the old man, 
" and there he stands !" pointing with his finger to the 
Katekiro, whose curiosity had drawn him forth from his 
hiding. Seeing himself discovered, he stepped forward 
to the side of the king. 

Then Ma'anda's wrath overwhelmed him, and for the 
first time in his life he raised his hand to strike. And 
his spear pierced the Katekiro to the heart, who fell 
with a cry at his feet. At the horror of his deed and 
his own blood-splashed robe, Ma'anda sprang back, and 
for an instant covered his face with his hands in an 
agony of sorrow. 

And when he opened his eyes again the forest was all 
dark, and the old man and his chiefs had vanished ! 

Nor from that day to this has an}^ one in Uganda 
seen the Blameless Priest. 



University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



OPINIONS OF THE LONDON PRESS 

ON THE WRITINGS OF THE 

"NEW ENGLISH HUMORIST." 



" These delightful papers . • . quaint humor and remarkable literary skill and 
taste. Old Izaac Walton would have enjoyed them immensely ; so would White 
of Selborne, and even Addison would have admired them. ... A sympathetic 
power of entering into their life and hitting it off in a happy and humorous man- 
ner, with the aid of much literary culture. ... In reading his lovmg diatribes 
against his furred and feathered acquaintances, one cannot help remembering that 
India has always been the home of the Beast Story. But since the Sanskrit Hito 
padesa was put together, we question whether any writer has given us such pic- 
tures of the floating population of lotus-covered tanks, and the domestic life that 
goes on in the great Indian trees. To Mr. Robinson, every pipal or mango^ tree 
is a many-storied house : each branch is full of vitality and intrigue, as an etage 
of a Parisian mansion. Snakes and toads live in a small way on the ground floor, 
until the arrival of the mongoose with his writ of ejectment; lizards lead a rackety, 
bachelor existence in the entresol; prosperous parrots occupy suites en premihre ; 
cats and gray squirrels are for ever skipping up or down stairs. The higher stories 
are the modest abodes of the small artistic world : vocalist bulbuls and dramatic 
mainas rehearsing their parts. The garrets and topmost perches are peopled with 
poor predatory kites or vultures ; from whom the light-fingered and more deeply 
criminal crow pilfers, not without a chuckle, their clumsily stolen supper. . . . 
Mr. Robinson is the Columbus of the banyan-tree- He sails away into its recesses 
and discovers new worlds. . . . Mr. Robinson has only to do justice to his artistic 
perceptions, and to his fine vein of humor in order to create for himself a unique 
place among the essayists of our day." — The Academy. 

" These charming little word-pictures of Indian life_ and Indian scenery are, 
so it appears to us, something more than an unusually bright page in Anglo-Indian 
literature ... as much humor as human sympathy. • . . The book abounds in 
delightful passages; let the reader, who will trust us, find them for himself . . . 
Mr. Edwin Arnold, who has introduced this little volume to English readers bya 
highly-appreciative preface, says truly that from these slight sketches a most vivid 
impression of every-day Indian life may be gathered. . . . The chief merit of 
these Indian sketches lies in their truthfulness; their realism is the secret of their 
vivid poetic life." -- TAe Examiner. 

" One of the most charming little series of sketches we have ever read. If we 
could imagine a kind of cross between White of Selborne and the American 
writer Thoreau, we should be able better to define what manner of author Mr. 
Phil Robinson is. He is clearly a masterly observer of out-door life in India, and 
not only records faithfully what he sees, but illuminates the record by flashes of 
gentle culture such as can only come from a well-stored and scholarly mind, and 
darts, moreover, sunny rays of humor such as can only proceed from a richly en- 
dowed and truly sympathetic nature. All living things he loves, and hence he 
writes about them reverently and lovinglv What the accomplished author of the 
preface calls ' the light and laughing science ' of this little book will do mure to 
familiarize the English reader with the out-door look of India than anything else, — 
save, of course, years of residence in the country."— The Daily Telegraph. 



Press Notices. 



" One of the most delightful and fascinating Httle books with which we have 
met for a long time. It is a rare pleasure to come across anything so fresh and 
brilliant. ... A literary treat is presented in this most clever and striking little 
volume. We can fancy with what a thorough sense of enjoyment poor Mortimer 
Collins would have turned over these pages, and how Mr- Robinson's graphic 
sketches of the ways of birds and the growth of trees would have appealed to 
Charles Kingsley. It is certainly a striking illustration of the old story, ' Eyes 
and No Eyes.' His style is particularly happy, and there is a freshness of tone 
about his whole bcok which raises it far above the ordinary level. ... It has 
been reserved for Mr. Robinson to open this new field of literature to English 
readers ; and we hope that his venture may meet with the success which it de- 
serves, so that the present volume may prove but the first of a long and delightful 
series. . . ." — John Bidl. 

" This is a charming volume. ... In his style we are reminded frequently of 
Charles Lamb. . . . The book has an antique flavor, like the quaint style of Elia; 
and, like Lamb, Mr. Robinson has evidently made an affectionate acquaintance 
with some of our early humorists. That he is himself a humorist, and looks at 
Indian life with a mirthfulness sometimes closely allied to pathos, is the charac- 
teristic which is likely first to strike the reader. But he will observe, too, that if 
Mr. Robinson describes birds, flowers, trees, and insects with the pen of the 
humorist rather than of the naturalist, it is not because he has failed to note the 
common objects in his Indian garden with the patient observation of a man of 
science. The attraction of a book like this will be more easily felt than described; 
and, just as there are persons unable to enjoy the fragrance of certain flowers or 
the taste of certain choice wines, it is possible Mr. Robinson's brightly-written 
pages may not prove universally attractive. Readers who enjoy them at all will 
enjoy them thoroughly. ... It would be impossible to convey the full flavor of 
this distinctly marked volume without extracting freely from its pages. The 
sketches are so full of freshness and vivacity that the reader, sitting under an 
English roof, will be able for the moment to see what the writer saw, and to feel 
what he felt." — The Pall Mall Gazette. 

"This book is simply charming. ... A perfect mine of entertaining and 
unique information. . . . An exquisite literary style, supplementing rare powers 
of observation ; moreover, the resources of a cultivated intellect are brought into 
play as well as those of a delicate and fertile fancy. The distinguishing character- 
istic of these charming trifles is perhaps leisureliness, yet something of the quaint 
grace of our olden writers clings to Mr. Robinson's periods. . . . Mr. Robinson, 
in short, is one of those few authors who have found their precise metier^ and can 
therefore write so as to entrance his readers." — The Whitehall Review. 

"A delightful little book is 'My Indian Garden,' in which an Ariglo-Indian 
sketches, with a delicacy, grace, and humor that are unflagging and irresistible, 
some aspects of outdoor life in India which have hitherto, for the most part, 
escaped the observation of writers on that wonderful land. . . . As an observer" 
of natural history, he is scarcely inferior to Gilbert White, while he has a capacity 
for recognizing and bringing out the ludicrous aspect of a subject that was denied 
to the dear old recluse of Selborne, and the literary charm of the book will be 
apparent to all. Mr. Robinson quaintly mingles shrewd observation of the man- 
ners and customs of the creatures he portrays with quizzical and metaphysical 
speculation. It has been said that Mark Twain's ' New Pilgrim's Progress,' 
with all its drollery, is about the best and most informatory tourist's hand-book 
for the Holy Land in existence. Just in the same way Mr. Robinson's ' Noah's 
Ark' is the'best possible companion for a visitor to the London Zoological Gar- 
dens. Our author has an unerring eye for the ludicrous aspect of things ; he 
pokes fun remorselessly at all animated nature, from the elephant to the mosquito ; 
but amid the play of his humor there are many touches of real pathos, snatches 
of powerful description, and a great deal of solid information. . . ." — Edinburgh 
Scotsman. 

" It is not given to many writers in these days to produce a book, small or 
large, which shall not in some degree remind the omnivorous reader of many other 
books, either by reason of its subject-matter, or its mode of treatment, or of both. 
Mr. Robinson's 'In my Indian Garden,' however, fairly establishes for its author 
a claim to this rare distinction. A fancy open to all the quaint, humorous, old phil- 



Press Notices. 



osophical reflections which the objects around him suggest. Underlying this in- 
direct way of looking at things, a genuine love of Indian rural life, and a cultivated 
taste, are abundantly indicated. Some of the briefdescriptive passages are curiouslv 
vivid." — Daily News. ^ 

" Mr. Robinson is a genial naturalist and genuine humorist. A more agreeable 
pocket-companion we can hardly choose than this volume." — Illustrated London 

News. 

"Mr. Robinson's charming essays breathe the true literary spirit in every line. 
They are not mere machine-made sweetmeats, to be swallowed whole and never 
again remembered ; but they rather resemble the most cunning admixtures of 
good things, turned out by a skilful craftsman in matters culinary. Whoever once 
reads this delicious httle book will not lay it carelessly aside, but will place it with 
respectful epicurean tenderness on his favorite shelf, side by side with Oliver 
Wendell Holmes's 'Kindred Musings,' and not far removed from the fresh coun- 
try atmosphere of Gilbert White's ' Selborne.' Mr. Robinson pknts himself in 
the verandah of a bungalow, it is true, and surveys nature as it presents itself upon 
the sweltering banks of the Jumna ; but he sees it with an eye trained on the 
shores of Cam or Isis, and describes it with a hand evidently skilled in the com- 
position of classical lore. Mr. Robinson's hum.or is too tender not to have a 
pathetic side ; little children come in for no small share of pitiful, kindly notice 
and the love for dumb creatures shines out in every page." — Loftdon. ' 

" Mr. Edwin Arnold's praise is valuable, for it is the praise of one who knows ; 
and Mr. Robinson fully deserves all that is said of him. His style is delightful. 
He has read much and observed much ; and there is a racy flavor of Charles 
Lamb about him. A book which once begun is sure to be read through, and then 
read aloud to any to whom the reader wishes to give pleasure." — The Echo. 

" Bright and fanciful — the author has done for the common objects of India 
something which Gilbert White did for Selborne— graceful and animated sketches, 
sometimes full of an intense reality, in.other places of a quaint and delicate humor 
which has a flavor as of the ' Essays of Elia.' " — The Guardian. 

" This_ dainty volume is one of those rare books that come upon the critic from 
time to time as a surprise and a refreshment, — a book to be put in the favorite 
corner of the library, and to be taken up often again with renewed pleasure. Mr. 
Robinson's brief picturesque vignettes of every-day life in India— always good- 
natured, often humorous— are real Httle idylls of exquisite taste and dehcacy. 
Mr. Robinson's style is exuberant with Hfe, overflowing too with reminiscences of 
Western literature, even the most modern. In his longer and more ambitious 
descriptions he displays rare graphic power ; and his sketches of the three sea- 
sons — especially those of the rainy and hot seasons — remind one forcibly of the 
wonderful realism of Kalidasa himself." — Dubliji Review. 

" The author is one of the quaintest and most charming of our modern writers 
in an almost forgotten kind. Mr. Robinson belongs to that school of pure literary 
essayists whose types are to be found in Lamb and Christopher North and OHver 
Wendell Holmes, but who seem to have died out for the most part with the pre- 
scientific age. One or two of the pieces remind one not a litde of Poe in his 
mood of pure terror with a tinge of mystery ; the story of the ' Man-Eating Tree,' 
for example, is told with all Poe's minute realism. It is good sterling light Htera- 
ture of a sort that we do not often get in England." — Pall Mall Gazette. 

" ' The Hunting of the Soko' is a traveller's tale of a very exciting kind ; and 
the first of all, ' The Man-Eating Tree,' is quite a master- piece of that kind. But 
the best and also the longest contribution to the volume is the sketch of an Indian 
tour called 'Sight-Seeing.' His pictures of India are certainly very vivid." — 
^S"^. James's Gazette. 

"Tenderness and pathos ; delicate and humorously quaint."'— P^^. 

" In ' The Hunting of the Soko' there is much cleverness in the way in which 
the human attributes of the quarry are insinuated and worked out, clouding the 
successful chase with a taint of manslaughter and uncomfortable remorse. The 
account of the ' Man-Eating Tree,' too, a giant development of our droseras and 



Press Notices. 



dionaeas, is a very good traveller's story. But the best as well as the most con- 
siderable of these essays, occupying in fact, two-fifths of the volume, is one 
entitled ' Sight-Seeing.' Here we have the benefit of the author's famiharity, not 
merely with the places in India worth seeing, but with the customs and character of 
the people. With such a ' sight-seer ' as guide, the reader sees many things the 
ordinary traveller would miss, and much information and not a little food for 
reflection are compressed into a relatively small space in a style which is not only 
pleasant but eloquent." — The Athencsum. 

" A deftly-mixed olla-podrida of essays, travel, and stories. 'Sight-Seeing' is 
one of those happy efforts which hit off the real points of interest in a journey. 
' My Wife's Birds' is an essay, genial and humorous; the 'Daughter of Mercy,' 
an allegory, tender and suggestive. But the tales of adventure carry off the palm. 
These stories are marvellous and fanciful, yet imaginative in the highest sense. 
' The Man-Eating Tree ' and the ' Hunting of the Soko,' blend thrilling horror 
and weird superstition with a close imitation of popular stories of actual adven- 
ture."— The IV or Id. 

" In a series of powerfully drawn sketches, Mr. Robinson shows that he belongs 
to the happy few in whom intimate acquaintance with Indian objects has created 
no indifference. The vignettes which he paints are by turns humorous and pathetic, 
serious and powerful, charming and artistic. From them we gain a vivid impres- 
sion of the every-day world of India. They show us in really admirable descrip- 
tions, bright and quaint, what a wealth of material for Art, Literature, and 
Descriptive Painting lies latent even in the daily e.vperiences of an Englishman in 
India The author writes about butterflies and insects, things furred and feath- 
ered, flowers and trees, with a keen eye for the life and instincts of Indian scenery, 
and with a delightful sympathy for the East. . . . His exquisite sketches remind 
one of the classical work— ' White's Natural History of Selborne.' In Mr. 
Robinson's book there is to be found the same patience in observation united to 
the charm of a highly-cultured mind. . . . Where everything is so good it would 
be idle to show a preference by quotation." —^J^agajin fur bie L'iteratUr be^ 

2lug(anbc5. 

" Mr. Phil. Robinson has his own way of looking at Nature, and a very pleas- 
ant way it is. His love of his subject is as genuine, perhaps more so, than that 
of the solemn naturalist who writes with a pen of lead : he can be at once lively 
and serious ; and his knowledge, which resembles in variety the contents of an 
ostrich's stomach, is exhibited without effort. Indeed, it would be incorrect to 
say that it is exhibited at all. His style is, no doubt, achieved with art, but the 
art is not seen, and his easy method of expressing what he knows may deceive the 
unwary reader. . . . This delightful volume ! A book which deserves the atten- 
tion both of old and young readers." — The Spectator. 

'^When Mr. Robinson sent out those delightful chapters entitled 'In My 
Indian Garden,' it was evident that a new genius had appeared on the horizon of 
English Hterature. In that exquisite little book, the original and accurate obser- 
vations of animal life which charmed the naturalist were conveyed with a humor 
so entn-ely new and clothed with a diction so perfect as to give a very high literary 
value to the work as well as a signal promise of further performance on a yet 
larger scale. . . . His purely literary quality reminds us of the old masters of 
humor; but it has the unique advantage of alliance with a range of exact knowl- 
edge of the animal world of which none of Mr. Robinson's predecessors can 
boast. And yet our author, with all his knowledge and love of animals, is pre- 
eminently a classic humorist. His rare and distinctive faculty is seen in his way 
of inverting our method of studying animals. In his scheme of investigating 
nature, man does not play his usually proud part of discoverer and exponent of 
his fellow animals in fur and feathers ; rather he is discovered and expounded by 
them. When the Unicorn in Mr. Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-glass 
first saw Alice, he remarked that he had always thought little girls were fabulous 
creatures. Mr. Robinson possesses in perfection this power of presenting man 
from what may be supposed to be an animal's point of view. And the view that 
every animal exists for itself and that all barriers to its self-interest are so many 
accidents and interferences with the scheme of nature, finds in our author's hands 
the most startling and amusing expression. . . . Mr. Robinson possesses grace, 



Press Notices. 



felicity, and literary wealth which no mere culture could ever attain ; he is a genius 
of a rare and classic kind. A ' Morning in the Zoo' with such. a companion will 
be found to have the charm of Thoreau without his vanity ; the humor of Lamb, 
never labored or attenuated into wire-drawn conceits." — London Standard. 

" Mr. Phil. Robinson is an entertaining writer : he is genial and humorous, 
with a knack of saying things in the manner of (Charles Lamb. . . . He has un- 
doubtedly a great liking for animals, > special knowledge of their works and ways, 
of their homes and haunts, and writes about them not in the style of a natural 
history, but with the freedom and gracefulness of a novelist or humorist. This 
book is well fitted to wile away the hours which can be stolen from absorbing 
work. The author chats pleasantly and charmingly about animals, with frequent 
digressions, which sometimes are almost startling enough to suggest an inquiry as 
to what possible relation the digression has with the book ; and yet, after all, the 
digression is as entertaining as the book proper. . . . We have but dipped into 
this thoroughly interesting and very admirable book, which tells us a very great 
deal about all kinds of animals from all parts of the world, and from its seas and 
rivers. It is full of real poetry of feeling, and contains much that philosophers 
and divines may ponder with exceeding advantage, and all sorts of readers will 
peruse with intense interest. We can scarcely give the book higher praise than 
this, and all this it richly deserves." — The London Literary World. 

" Even so admirable and delightful a writer as Mr. Phil. Robinson cannot afford 
to despise that incalculable element in human affairs which goes by the name of 
luck ; and he may be congratulated upon the fact that his latest volume comes 
under the notice of the reading world at a moment when that world has been 
brought into a condition of pecuHar and beautiful preparedness for its reception. 
When Jumbo is the hero of the hour, and when, in body or in mind, millions of 
our countrymen, countrywomen, and country children, have been making pilgrim- 
ages to his shrine in Regent's Park, the record of 'Mornings at the Zoo,' can 
hardly fail to exercise a powerful if melancholy fascination ; and when the recorder 
is a man like Mr Phil. Robinson the fascination is one that can amply justify 
itself to itself or to the world, and is not to be regarded as a mere spring frenzy 
or midsummer madness. . . . He is not a joke manufacturer. When the joke 
comes it is welcome, all the more welcome for coming spontaneously : and when 
it stays away, its place can easily be filled by some little tit-bit of recent scientific 
speculation or result of personal observation of the manners and customs of Mr. 
Robinson's brute friends. For ' Noah's Ark ' has something more than mere 
humor to recommend it. The humor is, in fact, but the mere decoration of a 
body of knowledge ; and the man with no more sense of fun than a hippopotamus 
might read it with edification as a contribution to ' natural ' as well as to ' unnat- 
ural ' history. Artemus Ward proudly remarked of himself that he had ' a very 
animal mind,' and Mr. Phil. Robinson might with even better reason indulge in 
the same boast. He is a true lover of beasts, birds, and fishes ; and because he 
is a true lover he is a keen observer, and because he is a keen observer he is a 
pleasant writer concerning the ways and the works — one might almost say the 
words — of the denizens of field and forest, of air and water. ' If you would be 
generous,' he saj's, in his brief postscript, 'do not think me too much in earnest 
when I am serious, or altogether in fun because I jest ; ' and one of the pleasantest 
features of this pleasant work is that it does not tire us by subjecting the mind to 
the fatigue of maintaining one attitude too long, but, like a cunningly constructed 
arm-chair, enables us to be comfortable in a dozen consecutive positions. Some 
good books can be recommended to this person or to that ; they resemble the 
square or the round peg which adapts itself admirably to the square or round hole. 
But ' Noah's Ark,' if the metaphor be not too undignified, is like the 'self-fitting 
candle' which is at home in any receptacle. It is — to drop metaphor — a book 
for everybody. " — The Overland Mail. 



Press Notices. 



THE INDIAN PRESS. 

" Mr. Phil. Robinson has struck out a new path in Anglo-Indian literature. 
. . . His essays are singularly fresh and charming. They come nearer to the 
tender wisdom of Elia than anything which has hitherto issued from an Anglo- 
Indian pen. . . . Every one of the thirty or forty essays has some special vein of 
humor of its own." — Englishman. 

" Distinguished by all the graces of a style which ought some day to give Mr. 
Phil. Robinson a high place among our popular writers." — /w^/« Daily News. 

"Not only clever and interesting, but instructive; . . . altogether the best 
thing of its kind we have come across in print." — The Exaniitier. 

'"To say that this is a charming book is merely to repeat what almost every 
reader of the Calcutta Review must have often heard said. It is altogether the 
very pleasantest reading of its kind that has ever appeared in India, and we would 
that it oftener fell to our lot to have such books to criticise." — The Calcutta 
Review. 

" It is given to few to describe with such appreciative grace and delicately 
phrased humor as Mr. Robinson. . . . Marked by keen observation, felicitous 
touches of description, and half-quaint, half-graceful bits of reflection and com- 
ment, . . . containing some most exquisite sketches of natural history." — 7'/w2^j 
of India. 

" A delightful little book. There is a similarity between the author's book and 
his subject which may escape the notice of the ordinary reader. Where is the 
casual observer who, having walked through an Indian garden, has not noticed 
the almost total absence of flowers ? Yet send a Malee into that identical Indian 
garden, and he wiil cull you a bouquet which for brightness and beauty can hardly 
be surpassed by anything in Covent Garden ; and it is precisely the same with 
this little volume of Phil. Robinson's. A little book brimful of interest, written 
with much grace, and a considerable amount of quaint humor which is very re- 
freshing. We sincerely trust he will give the public his Indian experiences in 
other fields which, cultivated by him, we doubt not will prove equally rich in 
production." — Times of India (Second Notice). 

" These most charming essays." — The Delhi Gazette. 

" Very charming ; dealing with familiar things with an appreciative grace that 
idealizes whatever it touches. Again and again we are reminded by the dainty 
embodiment of some quaint fancy of the essays of Charles Lamb ; . . . quite deli- 
cious and abounding in little des'criptive touches that are almost perfect ; cabinet 
word-pictures painted in a sentence." — Bombay Gazette. 

'■ " Admirable little work." — Friend of India. 

" A notable little book : within a small compass a wealth of fresh thoughts " — 
Madras Mail- 



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